The numbers are in: turns out that 2008 ended up being “ok” for Israeli VC funds. IVC Research Center reports that a total of $793 million was raised by Israeli VC funds in 2008.
The capital available for investment now reaches $1 Billion, of which $400 million is intended for first investments in high-tech companies and the remainder reserved for follow-on investments. Forecasts for 2009 are pretty grim – IVC estimates only $300 million to be raised this year.
An additional sum of $400 million was raised by Israeli private equity funds in 2008, but was not included in the report. The PE funds in Israel inlcude: Fortissimo II, Israel Secondary Fund, Vintage IV Fund of Funds, or Viola Private Equity.
2008 fundraising was 30% lower than the $1.14 billion raised in 2007, but nevertheless, the numbers speak for themselves:
- Carmel III closed with $235 million
- Gemini V closed with $150 million
- Cedar III closed with a $100 million fund
- Giza Venture Capital closed $100 in a fifth fund
- Jerusalem Venture Partners closed $100 in a fifth fund
- Genesis Partners announced first closings of $100 million with its fourth fund
Following VC Cafe’s post on the state of the VC industry in Israel, it turns out that our numbers were not that far off. While Israeli venture capital funds are shrinking the size of their funds, European funds seem to be oversubsribing almost. In addition to the decrease in fundraising in Israel, I believe that Israeli start ups will be more and more drawn to the network and expertise that a European or Valley VC can offer. Given the resurgence of Enterprise SaaS and traditional sales models, this is not surprising.
Per IVC’s request, I should let you know that these stats and more will be available on the IVC 2009 Yearbook, due in April. You may see the English Version of this report as well.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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