Pitango raising $250m growth fund

Pitango
Pitango

Market sources believe Pitango has already raised nearly half the sum for investment in Israeli growth stage startups.

Pitango Venture Capital today announced the first closing of its Pitango Growth Fund, dedicated to investments in growth-stage companies. With a planned scope of $250 million, market sources estimate that Pitango has already raised close to half that sum, although the venture capital firm has not disclosed how much it has raised so far. Isaac Hillel and Aaron Mankovski will lead growth investments at Pitango. Pitango Growth will operate in parallel to Pitango 6, which raised $270 million in 2012, and will continue to invest in early-stage companies.

Founded in 1993, Pitango has raised over $2 billion to date, according to IVC-research, not including the new growth fund. Pitango currently holds investments in 61 startups and over the years has enjoyed more than 100 exits including Anobit, which was sold to Apple in 2011 for $400 million and the legendary exit of Chromatis Networks sold to Lucent for $4.7 billion just before the high-tech bubble burst in 2000. Most of the company's investment portfolio is in Internet, IT and life sciences.

Pitango also announced today that Pascal Cagni, founder of C4 Ventures and former GM & VP Apple Europe (2000-2012) is joining as a partner. Cagni was personally recruited by Steve Jobs to lead Apple EMEIA (Europe, Middle East, India, Africa) and grew revenue from $1 billion in 2002 to $40 billion in 2012, making it Apple’s fastest growing region.

The announcement comes just a week after Pitango announced that two ther new partners were joining - Ittai Harel and Eyal Niv.

Cagni said, "When targeting growth companies looking for scale, partnering with one of the leading Israeli Venture Capital Funds became an obvious choice. I have worked closely with Pitango Partners over the years and believe they are uniquely placed to create a successful Growth Fund. This is a natural step to allow Israeli innovation to reach the U.S. and other international markets quicker.

Pitango general managing partner Aaron Mankovski ssaid, "Israeli entrepreneurs are now more focused on building large companies for the long term. We believe the number of these companies will continue to grow. We see vast and diversified deal flow of companies ready to accelerate. We look forward to invest and work closely with those entrepreneurs and companies to build worldwide category leaders."

He added, "We are excited about Pascal Cagni joining us. His vast experience, knowledge of international markets and presence is Europe, can add tremendous value to companies in their growth stage.”

The new fund announced today by Pitango reflects part of a new trend and profound change in Israel's high-tech industry. While in the past early-stage startups rushed towards an exit, new companies have emerged in Israel in the past few years with hundreds of employees (in Israel and abroad) with revenue of tens of millions of dollars, and many instances already generating profits. The venture capital industry has not stood idly by and in recent months a number of growth funds for more mature companies have been set up.

For example Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) raised an $80 million growth fund two months ago and Moshe Hogeg's Singulariteam raised a $30 million fund. In addition, Dedi Perlmutter, the former most senior Israeli at Intel has teamed with Rami Hadad and Eldad Tamir to set up the Eucalyptus Growth Fund.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 2, 2015

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2015

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