Pitango Venture Capital - Israel’s Largest VC Fund
Pitango Venture Capital is Israel’s largest VC fund. Established in 1993, today the company manages $2.8 billion in investments in over 250 companies. It focuses on all the investment stages of tech, science, and consumer-centric companies. In 2010, Pitango established the first fund in the country focused on Arab-Israeli investments.
The firm regularly partners with Chemi Peres, Aaron Mankovski, Rami Kalish, Eyal Niv, Guy Ezekiel, Daphna Cohen-Gersht and Bruce Crocker.
Overview of Pitango Venture Capital
Brief History
Pitango Venture Capital was founded by Rami Kalish in 1993 under the name Polaris Venture Capital. It was backed by an Israeli-government-sponsored program that offered tax incentives to foreign VC investments in Israel. Moreover, the government committed to double any investment the company received.
Since then, the company underwent several rebrandings. Today, it’s known as Pitango Venture Capital and invests in startups via three parallel funds: Pitango First, Pitango Growth, and Pitango HealthTech.
Geographically
Pitango VC was founded in Israel in 1993 and is currently headquartered in Herzliya. The firm also has offices in New York, NY and Palo Alto, CA.
Significant Investments
Pitango manages and invests in over 250 companies across all stages. It has led 85 of them to IPOs or exits. Recent IPOs and exits include:
- CyberMDX: In February 2022, the Israeli cybersecurity firm ForeScout Technologies acquired Israeli startup, CyberMDX. The latter was funded in 2017 and raised $30 million in funding with lead investors Pitango and OurCrowd. It was acquired in just five years.
- Celeno Communications: In October 2021, the Israeli wifi company, Celeno Communications, was acquired by a Japanese company, Renesas Electronics Corporation, for approximately $315 million. Celeno was founded in 2005 and raised $140 million with lead investors Pitango, Bank Hapoalim, and others.
- Neura: Also in October 2021, Otonomo, a provider of a pioneering vehicle data platform and marketplace, acquired Neura, an AI-powered Mobility Intelligence startup, for $50 million.
Pitango VC in the News
In April 2022, Liron Wand and Dr. Jonathan Glazer joined Pitango as Venture Partners. Wand holds an MBA and has headed Go-To-Market teams at Google, Facebook, and others. She was most recently Director Partnerships and Business Development at Facebook. Glazer holds an MD and MBA and is the former Head Head of the Ambulatory Care Service in Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center’s Emergency Department. He will be working in the firm’s Healthtech fund.
In June 2022, Pitango announced the upcoming launch of First Labs, a lab that will focus on early stage web3 technologies, tokenization, NFTs, and more. Its purpose is to support sustainable VC in the web3 world and to help companies transition from Web2 to Web3.
In October 2022, Pintago HealthTech added Hila Karah as Managing Partner and Joel Schoppig as Senior Principal. Karah has over 20 years of life sciences investment and is the former Chief Investment Officer of Eurotrust, while Schoppig served as VP Strategy at Healthy.io, a healthtech company that turns smartphone cameras into clinical-grade medical devices.
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