Groucho Marx could have been talking about the Israeli hi-tech sector when he said “I made a killing on Wall Street a few years ago…I shot my broker”. In 2012, as Israeli exits topped $5.5 billion, there was reason to celebrate but plenty of cause for concern.
Last week PWC released its quarterly moneytree report on the state of the venture capital industry in Israel. The top line figures indicate a 33% decline in VC investments in Q3, reaching $171 million compared to $255 million in the previous year. The main reason stated is the decline in availability of local VC funding. Overall in the first 3 quarters of 2012, Israeli companies raised $591 million, compared to $904 million in the equivalent period in 2011.
As every month, VC Cafe is re-posting the “Invest in Israel” Newsletter, published by the investment promotion center of Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, which offers many helpful tools for prospecting investors. For the Invest in Israel archive, click here. Large US tech companies continue to open innovation and R&D centers in Israel - Apple with the acquisition of Anobit, eBay with the acquisition of the Gifts Project, Yahoo who bought Dapper and so on... See the headlines below.
SingTel is the world’s second largest wireless group, owning all or part of 8 APAC wireless carriers and 462 million subscribers. In April, the company restructured into three business units- Consumer, ICT and Digital- naming Allen Lew to transform SingTel into a multimedia market leader. At the HTIA conference in Jerusalem last week, Allen discussed reinvention, Asian markets and areas of strategic opportunity.
During HTIA 2012, for the first time ever, 18 startups from three of Israel's all-star startup accelerators (DreamIt, The Junction and Microsoft Accelerator) gave five minute pitches to a full house of technology enthusiasts and the like.
On a macro level, VC funding for the most part hasn’t really changed. We’ve seen some pretty good years recently, with VC funding in Israel reaching an all-time high in 2011 at a record $2.2 billion in VC investment. While overall this is quite impressive, only 24% of VC investment in Israel actually came from Israeli VCs.
International visitors at the HTIA 2012 conference got much more than what they came for. It wasn’t just your typical roundtable sessions and panel discussions – it was a showcase of some of the finest innovation and human ingenuity in the world, and enough to inspire the entrepreneur in all of us.
As every month, VC Cafe is re-posting the “Invest in Israel” Newsletter, published by the investment promotion center of Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, which offers many helpful tools for prospecting investors. For the Invest in Israel archive, click here
Invest in Israel Newsletter – June 2012 Edition. This month’s trend continues to be acquisitions of Israeli firms by large US corporates. Lots of returns are being made these days, but the latest CalPers report shows dissapointing returns by Israeli VC firms, with an IRR of 3.5%-3.8% to JVP and Carmel, the highest performing funds.
There hasn’t been such a full list of Israeli startups coming to Europe since Barcelona’s World Mobile Congress. Innovate Israel 2012 aims to connect Israeli web, mobile & digital entrepreneurs & businesses with their UK & European counterparts. The UK…
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