Yossi Sela has accompanied Ed Malavsky at Gemini since 1993, serving for most of that time as senior investment manager in the firm, alongside Tali Even. Sela has played a major role in the success of companies like Ornet Data Communication Technologies, Ultracom, Verisity, and particularly Precise, invested in by Gemini I and Gemini II.
In the past year the Precise investment has yielded returns of $46 million, and the Gemini is still ready with handouts. Precise, Ceragon Networks, and lately even Verisity have made Gemini Israel’s most active VC fund with regard to sales by parties-at-interest in 2001.
Via a partnership with Israel’s IDB Group and the US-based Advent fund, Gemini is positioned as the largest of the entrepreneurial funds, with $36 million. In 1997, Gemini raised $110 million, and another $200 million was raised in 2000, in the twilight of the good old days.
Today Sela, like most of his VC peers, is in the midst of attempting to stabilize his portfolio. This task involved one celebration in the past year - the successful issue of Verisity in New York - and minor profit-taking for companies such as Oramir and eMation, along with painful write-offs such as that at EverAd.
Sela is esteemed as an investor, both by his professional peers and by his portfolio companies. He occasionally says cynically that if a VC fund has a goal, it’s the round of financing for the next fund, yet he works day and night for the benefit of his portfolio companies, particularly regarding Ornet, Ultracom, and Precise. Among the most promising in Gemini’s portfolio is Saifun, of which Sela says: “Boaz Eitan was here in the office with a blueprint of something or other. We sort of understood what he was talking about, and we took a gamble. I think it’s the best bet Gemini’s ever made.”
Published by Israel's Business Arena on September 16, 2001.