Japan's Orix, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Considering Additional Israeli Investments

Israel's Minister of Economy Eli Cohen left Sunday on a state visit to Japan, where he is meeting with state officials and industry leaders.

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On Tuesday, Mr. Cohen met with the CEOs of two Orix Corporation and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation, to interest them in investments in Israel.

Tokyo-headquartered Orix is a financial services group with almost 35,000 employees and an investment portfolio of energy, infrastructure, transportation and real-estate assets in almost 40 countries worldwide. In May, the company paid $627 million for a 22.1% stake in Israeli geothermal energy producer Ormat Technologies Inc., becoming its biggest shareholder.

Pharmaceutical company Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation is a member of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. In July, the company bought Israeli pharmaceutical company NeuroDerm Ltd. for $1.1 billion, in what is currently the largest ever acquisition of an Israel-based company by a Japanese company.

In 2014, Japan's largest e-commerce corporation Rakuten Inc. paid $900 for the popular Israeli messaging app. In 2016, the corporation participated in a funding round for Israel linked credit line company BlueVine.

In June, Japan's telecommunication company Softbank Group Corporation announced a $100 million investment in Boston-headquartered, Israel-linked Cybereason, which uses behavioral analytics to detect cybersecurity threats.

Orix and Mitsubishi Tanabe expressed interest in the Israeli market and its diverse investment opportunities, the ministry said in a statement.

Japanese corporations participated in 31 funding rounds for Israeli companies in the past three years, according to September data from Israel-based venture capital firm Viola Ventures. The number of investments is on the rise, from 7 rounds in 2015 to 13 in 2017.