Israeli investment firms get $665 million in 2016

With a number of new venture capital (VC) firms coming up, Israel registered an inflow of $665 million VC funding during the first two months of the year. The recent market crash couldn't affect the funds inflows.

Investment firms in Israel have received over $665 million new funding in January and February of 2016.

Though it's not direct investment, the funding requirements for startups at several stages can be met with this funds inflow. Israel's Secondary Fund with a corpus of $100 million has been set up in February.

Catalyst CEL, in partnership with Catalyst Private Equity, has floated its first private equity (PE) fund of $200 million for Israel-based startups. Catalyst fund focuses on mid-to-late stage funding requirements for startups in Israel in manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare and water sectors, according to Tech Crunch.

Titanium Investments from Russia has launched a $50 million fund for Israel startups. Israel's venture capital firm TLV Partners has also unveiled a new fund with $115 million in February. All these announcements put together make more than $665 million new commitments made during the first two months of 2016 in funding support for Israel startups.

Dror Glass, Managing Partner of ISF, said in a statement: "The secondary market has been developing rapidly in the recent years in Israel and it continues to grow at an accelerated pace. Investments of over $30 billion in Israeli funds and technology companies in the past decade have created an Israeli secondary market potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars."

Times Of Israel further adds that about 300 startups in the country received funding for the first time in 2015. Despite the market crash, venture capital funding continued to flow into Israel. According to a data from Israel Venture Capital (IVC) and law firm APM and Co, the country's most active venture capitalists Singulariteam, founded by Moshe Hogeg and Kenges Rakishev, have been leading the funding activity.

Secondary markets in Israel are also attracting funding support from several nations. Debt instruments for alternative financing for startups are also gaining momentum of late. European Investment Fund (EIF) and Bank Leumi along with Leumi Tech have made a deal to increase lending support to Israeli-based small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The number of startups in Israel rose to 1,400 in 2015. About 373 startups raised $3.58 billion capital and 69 firms have been sold for $5.41 billion. Israel-based startups gave an exit opportunity for investors, who got $1.5 from exit route for every $1 invested, according to Geektime.

The new agreement of European Investment Fund (EIF), Bank Leumi and LeumiTech will bring in a funding support to the tune of $100million for Israeli cloud tech, fintech, SaaS and digital media startups.