Israel Secondary Fund (ISF) is in advanced stages of raising $100 million for its second fund, ISF II. The majority of the amount has already been committed in the initial closing, by institutional investors, family offices, and private investors. ISF is a secondary fund that provides liquidity to the private equity and venture capital market by acquiring stakes in Israel related funds and private companies.
ISF, founded in 2009, is managed by Dror Glass, Nir Linchevski, and Shmuel Shilo. Dror Glass, who has been active in the Israeli secondary market since 2001, previously served as Managing Director at Orama Investments, member of the IDB Group, Investment Manager at Israel Corporation, an investment banker at Evergreen and an executive director of the Wharton-Recanati Program at Tel Aviv University. Nir Linchevski joined ISF in 2014, after founding and serving as a partner at the private equity firm Shiraz Investments in 2007-2012 and as chairman of Altshuler Shaham, an asset management firm with over $10 billion in assets. Prior to that, he served as managing partner at VantagePoint Capital Partners, a US Venture firm and was a partner in the Israeli venture capital firm Formula Ventures. Shmuel Shilo was one of the founders of the Israeli secondary market and served as managing partner of Harvest Secondary Fund (Israel's first secondary fund), managing Harvest Fund I and Harvest Fund II in 1998-2005.
ISF is raising ISF II following the success of their inaugural fund, ISF I, which was founded in 2009 and has $50 million under management. ISF I held direct and indirect stakes in more than 100 private companies, and has already realized 30 exits. The direct and indirect exits include the acquisition of Waze Ltd. by Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG), the IPO of SolarEdge Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: SEDG), the acquisition of SuperDimension by Covidien Ltd., the acquisition of PrimeSense Ltd. by Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), the sale of WorkLight to IBM Inc. (NYSE: IBM), and the recent acquisition of Altair Semiconductor Ltd. by Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE).
ISF is engaged in the full spectrum of secondary transactions: the acquisition of limited partner (LP) positions in Israeli venture capital and private equity funds; the acquisition of minority direct holdings in private companies; and structured deals providing capital to existing venture capital and private equity funds.
ISF managing partner Dror Glass said, "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. Today, companies are staying private for longer, and build very significant business activity before going public or being acquired. As a consequence, there has been a growing need by entrepreneurs and investors for liquidity in the years preceding an exit. ISF aims to become the preferred liquidity provider for entrepreneurs, executives and investors in the years preceding an exit, and to be a long-term financial partner for the companies and funds in which ISF invests."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 15, 2016
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