Japanese Company SocioNext Invests $5 Million in Israel-Based XVTEC

Japanese chipmaker SocioNext Inc. invested $5 million in Israel-based video transcoding company XVTEC Ltd., the company announced in a statement Tuesday. This is SocioNext's first investment in Israel, the statement said.

SocioNext is a system-on-a-chip company established in 2015 as a consolidation of the system LSI businesses of Fujitsu Ltd., an information technology company, and Panasonic Co., maker of electronic technologies. It was established with a contribution from the Development Bank of Japan Inc.

Headquartered in Yokohama, Japan, SocioNext has a team of about 2,500 employees worldwide.

XVTEC was founded in 2012 by businessman Israel Goren and serial entrepreneur Yigal Fraydon, who specializes in video compression and processing.

XVTEC developed a technology for high-speed compression of large HD video files.

XVTEC will use the investment to grow its employee base and expand its research and development. SocioNext will step in as a partner in XVTEC, which will serve as SocioNext's development center in Israel, XVTEC said.

"SocioNext's choice to invest in our company as their initial investment in Israel is a great honor to us and to Israeli technology," said XVTEC CEO Israel Goren. "This is yet another proof of the innovation of XVTEC's technology. We believe that this investment and our complete collaboration with SocioNext will allow us to build up and maintain the technological gap with our competitors."