Israel’s venture capital industry has voted with its feet with an impressive presence at the first conference of its kind in Israel last week - the Incubators Clean-Tech Conference, held last week. Much has been written about the critical need for the development of water and alternative energy solutions, the two leading cleantech categories. It seems that Israel’s venture capital industry has understood the message of cleantech potential business. The momentum, especially in water, is here and now, and those who do not develop or invest in technologies fast enough will not cash in the huge coupons cleantech is expected to generate.
As “Globes” first reported in January, six venture capital funds that have raised an aggregate $300 million, including Terra Venture Partners LP, which raised $60 million and attended the conference, and Millennium Material Technologies Fund, which raised $100 million, one quarter of which is slated for investment in water solutions. Many other funds also attended the cleantech conference.
Companies presenting technologies at the conference included:
Participating venture capital funds at the Incubators Clean-Tech Conference included Eurofund, Gemini Israel Funds, Giza Venture Capital, Israel Cleantech Ventures, Israel Seed Partners, Myriad Partners, Terra Venture Partners, TN Ventures, TopNotch Capital, Veritas Venture Partners , as well as representatives of Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC) and IBM (NYSE:IBM).
L Capital senior associate in Israel Sarit Soccary Ben-Yochanan said 30% of the fund’s $150 million was invested in Israel. She added that three of fund’s eight portfolio companies were Israeli, one of which was in cleantech: Aquarius. She said L Capital was considering possible investment in Israeli cleantech companies.
Conversations with representative of other funds at the conference indicated that most of them were still studying the issues, and that they were very cautious about making investments. The funds prefer companies with a developed product, whereas most Israeli cleantech companies, especially those making presentations at the conference, were still in the R&D stage, which they consider too early for investment.
IBM Global Technology Unit (GTU) business operations and echosystems Pini Burtman represented a different kind of investment under consideration at the conference. IBM GTU looks for Israeli technologies, and links them with IBM. The unit is in contact with the Office of the Chief Scientist and other agencies for this purpose. GTU emphasizes that no financial investment is involved, but cash equivalent investment, such as support through software or business development services. GTU and the Office of the Chief Scientist have signed a framework agreement, under which the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor will invest in incubator companies that GTU is interested in, while IBM will provide cash equivalent services to help the company commercialize its product.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on May 28, 2006
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