"Globes" has learned that the BRM group is establishing a $400 million venture capital fund, called Capital Fund. The fund will invest in companies at the expansion stage and at the mezzanine stage (before IPO). BRM itself will invest at least $100 million in the fund.
The fund's management company will be located in the US, and will have both US and Israeli partners. The fund will invest in Israeli companies and in various companies developing Internet infrastructure products. The fund will invest in eight to ten companies per year. The volume of investment in each round will average $15 million, but will always exceed $10 million.
BRM began as an anti-virus program developer, later becoming an investment company. Partners in BRM included Nir and Eli Barkat, and Yuval Rakavy, who were later joined by US businessman Charlie Federman, a former Broadview employee, as fourth partner.
The group's best-known investment was in Check Point, which it entered at the seed stage. BRM realized this investment with a profit of hundreds of millions of dollars.
The group also founded BackWeb, which was issued on NASDAQ with great success, and is currently traded at a market value of $1.5 billion. IPHighway was another BRM-founded company. The group has invested in additional start-ups at the seed stage.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on January 26, 2000