With six first investment deals Evergreen Venture Partners was the most active VC fund in Israel in 2010, according to the latest IVC Research Center report. The second place was shared by Battery Ventures Israel and Pontifax, with five investments each. The report ranked both Israeli and foreign VC funds active in Israel based on their first-time investments in Israel-based, or Israel-related companies. The data for the report was contributed by the funds.
Evergreen started in 1987 by Jacob Burak, as one of the first VC funds in Israel. Battery only opened its local office in Israel in 2008 and have since increased its investments in the market, having been active in Israel since the mid 90s. Pontifax is a life sciences fund, with a stake in the ATI and Meytav incubators and a strategic agreement for joint investments with Roche, the pharma giant.
Overall, 75 first investments were made in Israeli startups in 2010. Israeli VC funds accounted for 69% of the total deals. Among the total number of deals, there were 24 seed–stage deals, accounting for 32% of the total volume of first-investments.
Internet is the most active sector in first investments with 19 deals or 25% of the total deal volume, followed by software with 17 deals or 23%. Life sciences was third with 12 deals or 16 percent.
The number of of first investments by Israeli VCs went down to 52 deals, compared with 66 deals in 2009, but the dollar volume remained the same. According to the IVC-KPMG 2010 Venture Capital Survey, first investments accounted for 29% of the total amount invested by Israeli VC funds, as in 2009.
The table below illustrates the number of first investments made by active funds in Israel in 2010:
Most Active Venture Capital Funds in Israel – 2010 Ranked by Number of First Investments
| Rank | Management Company | Capital Managed ($m) | Total First Investments | Company |
| 1 | Evergreen | 648 | 6 | AeroScout, innerActive, Nephera, Notal Vision, Peer Medical, Pentalum |
| 2 | Battery1 | N/R2 | 5 | Gogobot, Istra Research, Panaya, Pursway, ZeRTO |
| Pontifax | 118 | 5 | AIT, Avraham Pharmaceuticals, Fusimab, ProtAb, Se-cure | |
| 3 | Gemini | 696 | 4 | Constant Finance, SaaSPulse, Sense of Fashion, The Gifts Project |
| Genesis | 618 | 4 | Any.Do, Intucell, SiSense, VisIC | |
| Carmel | 608 | 4 | Multiphy, Personetics, RealMatch, Snaptu | |
| Cedar | 325 | 4 | Intigua, Plankton Digital, Scalebase, Zizio | |
| 4 | Bessemer1 | N/R2 | 3 | BillGuard, DensBits, Intucell |
| Pitango | 1,340 | 3 | EarlySense, LiveU, Top7 | |
| Sequoia Israel | 580 | 3 | Mintigo, Scodix, Taykey | |
| Magma | 190 | 3 | Onavo, SightEra, Triapodi | |
| Aviv | 77 | 3 | Jettable, Minicom Digital Signage, ScaleMP |
Wonder where are Index Ventures, Accel and some of the other International funds?
- Ranking only includes Israeli VC funds, and foreign VC funds that either (a) have an Israel-dedicated fund with a local management team and a local office, or (b) invest in an Israeli management company and co-manage an Israeli fund through a local office, or (c) have an allocation to Israel from its general pool.
- Investments include Israeli and Israel-related high-tech companies only.
- Investments do not include incubated or non-technology companies.
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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