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. This month’s top headline is that Israeli exits in 2013 reached $4.9 billion, making it a record year for Israeli high-tech. Browse the headlines below for …
Continue reading “Invest in Israel Newsletter – August 2013 Edition”
A new report by IVC Research center, ranks the most active VC funds in Israel according to their first money investments. Carmel Ventures topped the list with 11 new investments followed by Horizons Ventures. In total, 90 VC funds in Israel made first investments in Israeli startups, but only 19 funds (both Israeli and foreign) …
Continue reading “IVC Report: The most active VC Funds in Israel in 2012”
We’ve been hearing that Israeli VC funds struggle to raise follow on funds, but the extent of their demise is now becoming clearer, and gloomier. A new report released by IVC Online, highlights that Israeli Venture Capital funds raised $607 million in 2012, 30% down from the previous year
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.
According to the latest IVC-KMPG quarterly survey published today, in the first quarter of 2012, venture capital investments in Israel rached $483 million, up slightly from the amount invested in Q1/2011. 144 Israeli high-tech companies raised $483 million from Israeli and foreign venture investors, 15% below $569 million raised by 124 companies in the previous quarter, but almost equal to $479 million raised by 140 companies in Q1/2011.
On aggregate, putting a dollar into Israeli high-tech could yield you more than double the returns (if only these things worked on aggregate!). In the last decade, Israeli high-tech companies raised approximately $15 billion from investors, compared to more than $37 billion received in M&A and IPO exits, according to the latest IVC report.
Reports on the drop of local VC financing in Israel don’t tell the whole story. The latest IVC report reveals that in 2011, 546 Israeli high-tech companies raised $2.14 billion in VC funding, representing a 70% increase compared to the $1.26 billion raised in 2010 and almost double from the $1.12 billion raised in 2009.
The latest IVC Online report is out and it offers interesting color on the funding of Israeli startups. According to the report, 137 startups raised $522 million in Q3 of 2011, up 53% from the equivalent period in 2010, but down 8% from the $549 million raised in Q2 2011.
IVC Online and KMPG have released their summary of venture capital raising for Q2 2011, in Israel. 285 companies raised $1.048 Billion in the first half of 2011, an 82% increase compared to the $577 million raised in the equivalent period in 2010. In Q2 alone, 145 Israeli companies raised $569 million from both local and foreign VCs.
Zeev Holtzman, founding partner of Giza Venture Capital and founding member of the Israel Venture Association (IVA), cautioned that “Israel’s venture capital and startup industry is heading for collapse. The industry, which is the economy’s growth engine, is liable to be irreversibly damaged”, in a recent interview to the Venture Capital Journal
