startups

Israel Resilience Fund started first investments

Posted on by Techtime

Photo above (left to right): Jeff Kupietzky, Jon Medved, Noam Kaiser and Liat Sverdlov

The digital investment platform,  OurCrowd, announced the first close of its $50 million Israel Resilience Fund, with more than $13 million in capital commitments, and approved the first 8 investments from the fund. OurCrowd will waive all management fees and carried interest as a contribution to Israel’s current wartime emergency.  The fund, which was first announced just 40 days ago, becomes one of the fastest-closing venture funds ever to go from conception to closure and to make actual investments.

Jon Medved, OurCrowd Founder and CEO, said, “Many venture-backed companies in Israel are already struggling due to the global venture slowdown and now face even more serious obstacles due to the war in Gaza. The Israel Resilience Fund will seek to create outsized returns for investors by taking advantage of discounted valuations in the current market, while supporting Israeli companies to survive the crisis and flourish in the long run.”

The Israel Resilience Fund aims to focus on 50+ startups directly affected by the crisis. It is managed by Jeff Kupietzky, a seasoned operator with over 15 years’ experience as a high-tech CEO in the US and Israel. Kupietzky recently sold his company Jeeng to OpenWeb for $100 million. Kupietzky is accompanied by expert investment partners including Noam Kaiser, a former Partner at Intel Capital, and investor at Gemini Israel Ventures and Offer Hi Tech; and Liat Sverdlov, a Partner with the OurCrowd Investments Team.

Eight startup companies were selected to receive investments this month. Recipients include: 

  • BlueTree, which has developed proprietary technology to reduce sugar in natural beverages. The company was recently evacuated from its facility in Kiryat Shmona near the Lebanon border;
  • Carrar, experts in EV battery thermal management systems. The company was forced to relocate from its headquarters in Sderot near Gaza;
  • Edgybees, utilizing satellite and motion imagery to deliver actionable insights currently in use to save lives;
  • Verobotics, utilizing an autonomous robot for building exterior upkeep and proactive maintenance, whose key staff are serving in the reserves.

OurCrowd is a global investing platform that empowers institutions and individuals to invest in emerging technology companies at an early stage. Acclaimed by PitchBook as the most active venture investor in Israel every year since 2013, OurCrowd vets and selects companies across all sectors and stages, invests its own capital, and provides its global platform of over 225,000 registered members from 195 countries with unparalleled access and freedom to co-invest from as little as $10,000 in the companies of their choice.

Record Number of Investments in Israeli Start-ups

Posted on by Techtime

During January 2021, the month that COVID-19 reached its peak in Israel, local Start-ups raised $1.44B – a record amount of investments in Israel during a single month. Six start-ups raised more than $100M each (mega rounds) during the month. According to Start-Up Nation Central (SNC) the mega-rounds in January 2021 alone, equal close to 30% of the total number of mega-rounds in the entire year of 2020.

It is the highest number of both mega-round and general investments made during a single month in Israeli start-ups. The year 2020 witnessed 21 ‘mega-round’ investments during the whole of 2020, equivalent to 33% of capital raised. As a monthly comparison, there were three ‘mega-rounds’ in January 2020, none in January 2019 or January 2018. The mega-rounds in January were led by US investors.

Fintech was the dominant sector with two ‘mega-rounds’ and $413M raised. It is a continuation of Fintech’s strong performance since September 2020 with $1.4B in investments compared to only $340M raised in the first eight months of 2020. Director of Research at(SNC), Meir Valman, said that the record level of fundraising is driven by the increasing maturity of the Israeli tech ecosystem, when rapidly growing startups are able to raise much larger rounds.

The six ‘mega-rounds’ which were announced during January 2021 were: Rapyd Financial Network (Fintech, $300M), Drivenets (Network Infrastructure, $208M), OwnBackup (Enterprise solutions, $167.5M), K Health (Digital health, $132M), Resident Home (Ecommerce, $130M) and Melio (Fintech, $110M).

Start-Up Nation Central is a non-profit organization that helps tackle global challenges by connecting Israeli technologies with multinational corporations, governments, investors, as well as NGO’s from around the world.

Startups raisings in Israel: $1.2 billion in September 2020

Posted on by Techtime

Israeli startups raised a record $1.2 billion in September 2020, the largest amount raised in a single month, according to data from the Start-Up Nation Finder. It was also the first time that more than $1 billion was raised in one month. Year to date, the total for three quarters has reached $7.2 billion, nearing last year’s record full-year total of $7.6 billion.

The record equity raised in September 2020 was led by two mega-rounds: InsurTech company Next Insurance raised $250 million in a series D round, following the company’s C Round in October 2019, which also totaled $250 million; the second-largest sum, $200 million, was raised by open-source security platform Snyk, also in a series D. This follows the company’s $150 million round earlier this year.

The month of September 2020 represents a huge turnaround from the lows of May 2020, when just $421 million was raised at the height of concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic would halt future growth in the technology sector. While equity rounds exceeded $600 million in every month from June through August, it was only in September that they once again reached – and, in fact, exceeded – the previous high recorded in April, when $970 million was raised.

However, while the total amount raised in September hit an all-time record for a single month, the actual number of rounds is still below previous peaks. Only 50 rounds were raised in September, compared to the peak of 121 rounds recorded in January 2018. It should be noted that there is a time lag in the reporting of many rounds, especially those raised by early-stage startups, so this number is likely to be revised upward in the future.