Ron Lauder is investing in the Nielsen Innovate incubator in Caesarea through R&R Venture Partners, a fund created by him and Richard Parsons. Fred Langhammer, a former chairman and CEO of Estee Lauder Companies Inc., Ron Lauder's cosmetics company, has joined in the investment.
Prior to Lauder's investment, Nielsen Holdings NV (NYSE: NLSN) owned 51% of Nielsen Innovate, and Igal Ahouvi's private investment fund Partam Hi-Tech owned 49%.
Nielsen Innovate's collaboration with Estee Lauder's owner is the result of Nielsen Holdings SVP business development Itzhak Fisher, who was responsible for establishing the incubator. Fisher and Lauder were introduced by Benjamin Netanyahu 20 years ago. Fisher joined Lauder in managing his firm RSL Communications Ltd., which made 12 acquisitions in the 1990s and raised billions of dollars before crashing in 2001 in the dot.com bubble. The personal and professional ties remained.
Langhammer joined Fisher in an investment in Israeli start-up Buzzmetrics, which developed technology for identifying trends in user-generated content, and subsequently mediated Nielsen's acquisition of the company for $100 million in 2007.
Nielsen Innovate currently has six portfolio companies. "We've succeeded in establishing collaborations for our companies through Nielsen. An investment of this size will help us continue to leverage the attractiveness of the investments," said Nielsen Innovate CEO Esther Barak-Landes.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 2, 2014
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