US venture capital firm Greylock Partners announced the launch today of Greylock Israel, a $150 million fund for investments in Israel.
Greylock will make all its investments in Israeli high-tech companies from the new fund, which will focus on early stage growth companies. The new fund will be managed by three Greylock partners, Moshe Mor, Erez Ofer and Yoram Snir, who will operate out of offices in Herzilya.
The company said in its announcement said that the raising and launch of the new fund, “underpins Israel’s importance as a world center for entrepreneurship and technology, and the importance that Greylock attaches to providing local support to young companies aspiring to succeed in the global market.”
Greylock was founded in 1965. It is one of the prominent venture capital firms in the US and has been active in Israel since 2001. It has invested in eight Israeli companies to date: Siliquent Technologies, acquired in 2005 by Broadcom Corp (Nasdaq: BRCM); Imperva, which was founded by Check Point co-founder Shlomo Kramer; ClearForest, PortAuthority Technologies; Red Bend Software; Illuminator; HyperRoll; and Unipier.
Greylock added that it would continue to invest in young technology companies with the potential to become global leaders in their respective fields, while cooperating with other Israeli funds and Greylock partner teams in the US.
Moshe Mor has a record in management and entrepreneurship. Prior to joining Greylock in 2000, he co-founded and managed SPL WorldGroup. Yoram Snir was previously head of a corporate international business development team at Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), and was responsible for its acquisitions, investments and strategic partnerships efforts in Europe, Asia Pacific and Israel as well as in the global service provider technology space. Before that he served as manager with ClassData Inc. which was acquired by Cisco in 1998. Erez Ofer previously served as executive vice president in charge of technology strategy for EMC Corporation, reporting to president and CEO Joe Tucci.
Greylock currently manages assets totaling $2.2 billion.
Moshe Mor said, “This is a natural development of Greylock’s investment strategy in Israel, which reflects its confidence in the Israeli high-tech market on the one hand, and the change required when working with young companies.
”An ever increasing number of Israeli companies are succeeding by focusing on international markets outside the US, and sometimes they locate the company management in Israel. The launch of Greylock Israel and the strengthening of our local presence will enable us to give better support to entrepreneurs, wherever they choose to locate their operations.”
Greylock recently celebrated its 40th anniversary as a leading venture capital firm. Since it was founded, it has supported and financed companies such as Decru Inc., Ascend Communications, Legato, CheckFree Corporation and Trilogy.
Greylock has offices in Herzilya, Boston, and San Mateo, California. Its partners include three generations of investors with extensive operative and financial experience. Greylock’s partners formerly served as executives with leading technology companies such as Check Point, EMC Corporation, Sienna, PeopleSoft and IBM.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 16, 2006
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