Magenta Venture Partners Announces Early Stage Fund Targeting $100 Million

Israel-based venture capital firm Magneta Venture Partners has announced on Monday a new fund targeting $100 million, to focus on early stage investments in the domains of automotive, mobility, artificial intelligence, smart cities, industry 4.0, enterprise software, and fintech. Magenta has already raised most of the sum in commitments and expects to close the fund in 2019.

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Founded in October 2018 and based in central Israeli town Herzliya, Magenta is a partnership between two Israeli venture capitalists and Japanese trading company Mitsui & Co. Ltd.

The four partners and co-founders are Ori Israely, formerly of Motorola Solutions Venture Capital and Giza Venture Capital; Ran Levitzky, formerly from Israel-based Viola Ventures; Hiroshi Takeuchi of Mitsui; and Atsushi Mizuno from Mitsui’s investment arm.

While Mitsui has been investing in Israel for the past eight years, according to Shinichi Kikuchihara, managing officer and chief operating officer of corporate development business at Mitsui, the company intends to “further strengthen” its investment and business promotion activities in Israel via the fund.

All the investors in Magenta are large Japanese companies, according to Levitzky. Japanese lightning manufacturer Koito Manufacturing Co. Ltd. is one of the investors, according to Takeuchi, who said both Mitsui and Kioto are looking to Israel to identify innovative technologies.

Kioto is especially looking to partner with Israeli startups in the domains of automotive driving and smart cities, said Yuji Yokoya, executive vice president of Koito.