Undeterred by war, Index Ventures invests $60 million in five Israeli startups since last October
The VC fund has made 12 investments totaling $186 million in local companies since establishing an official office in Israel in 2022
Venture capital fund Index Ventures has raised $2.3 billion for two new funds focused on artificial intelligence, which will also include investments in Israel.
The first fund, amounting to $800 million, is intended for investments in new companies at the initial stages of activity. The second fund, totaling $1.5 billion, will specialize in large and late-stage rounds in mature companies.
Although these amounts are slightly lower than Index's previous funds, they still represent an impressive sum that signals a renewed appetite for venture capital among institutional investors worldwide.
These two new funds bring Index's managed capital to $15 billion. Index's importance to Israel lies mainly in its specialization in early-stage investments, which have recently experienced a significant slowdown.
Index has been operating in Israel since its establishment in 1996, but only at the end of 2022 did it open an official representative office in Israel, managed by Juriaan Duizendstraal. Duizendstraal is one of the 15 partners in the fund and is headquartered in Tel Aviv. Shardul Shah, one of the senior partners in the fund, is also involved in activities in Israel and serves as a director in several companies, including the cyber company Wiz.
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Calcalist has learned that since the decision to establish official operations in Israel, Index has made 12 investments totaling $186 million in local companies. The fund has not reduced its activity even since the outbreak of the war, investing $60 million in five companies since October 2023. In total, since the beginning of its operations in Israel, Index has invested about half a billion dollars in 32 Israeli companies.
Index's most significant investment in Israel is in the cyber company Wiz, where it was one of the first investors and participated in the last giant round of almost a billion dollars, held at a valuation of $12 billion.
Beyond that, last March, Index led a capital raising of $47 million for Empathy, which develops software to help grieving families deal with legal and bureaucratic tasks. Other notable investments in the past year include leading a large Seed round of $16 million in PointFive and Apex, both cyber companies. In addition, Index has invested in several other start-ups in recent months that are still in stealth mode.
In Israel, Index's main emphasis to date has been on cyber, but globally it is increasing its focus on generative artificial intelligence, which may indicate the paucity of supply by companies in this hot field in Israel. Index participated in the huge Seed round of the French AI startup Mistral, raising more than $100 million in 2023. In the last round of the company, about a month ago, it already received a valuation of $6 billion. Index was also among the first investors in the promising AI startup Cohere from Canada. Index's more well-known and older investments include companies such as Roblox, Figma, and Revolut.
