Trendlines Group Ltd. today announced that it is embarking on raising capital for a new NIS 300 million venture capital fund, which will invest in medical devices and cleantech companies.
Trendlines, owned by co-chairmen and CEOs D. Todd Dollinger and Steve Rhodes, is the franchisee of Misgav Venture Accelerator and Mofet Venture Accelerator and operates Trendlines Labs for medical devices projects in collaboration with multinationals. It also operates a micro-fund totaling a few million dollars, which makes follow-on investments in companies which graduate from its accelerators. Trendlines has also founded two public companies, Flowsense Medical Ltd. (TASE: FLSN), which just sold its assets to Baxter International Inc. (NYSE: BAX) for $8 million, and ET View Medical Ltd. (TASE: ETVW).
Most of Trendlines' investments in the incubators' portfolio companies are financed by the government and only have to repay the financing if they succeed. As a result, Trendlines has invested only a few tens of millions of dollars in building a portfolio of 60 companies.
The new fund will invest in current Trendlines' portfolio companies, as well as in new companies that graduate from Misgav and Mofet. The fund may also invest in new companies if exceptional opportunities come up.
Trendlines says that it has achieved a return of 45% since it was founded, mainly from the sale of Polytouch and the IPOs of ET View and Flowsense.
Rhodes told "Globes", "We're targeting our previous investors as well as new ones, American institutions, and wealthy individuals. We invite Israeli investors to participate in the fund, and we're in contact with several Israeli institutions. Regrettably, they are unenthusiastic to invest in incubators at the moment, because they are unjustly perceived as small and marginal, at least in our case. We hope that the institutions can be persuaded otherwise, but at the moment, most of our investment is from overseas."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 24, 2013
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