In a possible sign of boom times, Milestone International LLC is opening a branch in Israel, after helping close two deals here. In the first deal, announced recently, Sequoia Capital invested $6 million in US start-up Olive Software. The second deal has not yet been announced. Milestone International is in partnership with Clearview Investment Partners.
Milestone provides services for start-ups seeking buyers with deep pockets, entry into the US market, financing from US venture capital funds, or trying to sign strategic agreements with major companies. Founded in 1999, Milestone has participated in scores of mergers and acquisitions amounting to $1 billion, and has helped start-ups raise $400 million.
Milestone has offices in New York, Phoenix, Washington DC, and Silicon Valley. Milestone International managing partner Elliot Prince has now decided that the time has come to set up shop in Israel. This is not his first time in Israel. In the 1990s, he was a senior manager in Salomon Smith Barney (Israel), after working for 16 years as a high-tech analyst for Oppenheimer and Salomon Smith Barney. He specialized in Israel companies, covering Matav-Cable Systems Media (Nasdaq: MATV; TASE:MATV), Mercury Interactive Corporation (Nasdaq: MERQ), New Dimension Software, Tadiran Telecom Business Systems, Teledata, Tecnomatix Technologies (Nasdaq:TCNO), Zoran (Nasdaq: ZRAN) and other companies.
"The US federal government needs Israeli technology products," says Milestone International partner Gary Fuchs. "We believe that there is great business potential here, but Israeli companies face many hurdles. The market is very hard to penetrate without connections or partnerships. Our partner in Washington is a former senior administration official, who served in the Defense Department and elsewhere. We can locate administration appropriations for various technologies. The administration also uses our services to find technologies and companies."
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on May 18, 2004