Israel-based AnD Ventures is launching its first fund, looking to invest in artificial intelligence, database and software technologies, as well as new emerging markets.
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The company, founded last year, has raised about 80 percent of its initial $50 million seed fund, said Lee Moser, the firm’s co-founder and managing partner. Moser previously was a partner at iAngels and chief of staff of the Israeli ambassador in Washington, D.C.
The new firm expects target check sizes to range from $1 million to $1.5 million, with AnD anticipating to invest in 15 to 17 companies in the next three years or less. Remaining money in the fund will be used for follow-on rounds.
“It could take us three years — or maybe a little less,” Moser said. “There really are a lot of opportunities out there.”
Corporate and academic
The firm is looking to enhance deal flow by partnering with IDC Herzliya’s IDCX Accelerator and the European Institute of Innovation & Technology’s Calling2Scale Bootcamp, hoping to spot the best companies. The firm also will leverage close partnerships with large enterprises, hoping those companies can give needed traction to the firm’s new investments through being a customer, strategic investor or even something more in the future.
“They could be a buyer of the solution or maybe even the company,” said Kfir Kachlon, general partner at the firm.
AnD also plans to leverage those relationships for portfolio companies to build a presence in overseas markets — namely New York and Tokyo — to start out, said Roy Geva Glasberg, AnD’s co-founder and managing partner, formerly founder and general manager for Google’s global startup program “Google for Startup Accelerator.”
Looking to the US
While AnD anticipates making the majority of its investments in Israel, the firm wants its portfolio companies to penetrate the U.S. market as quickly as the product allows, Moser said. The firm believes it is realistic that after the seed investment its portfolio company will be able to increase sales 10x, she added.
Aside from its focus areas around enterprise tech, Kachlon said the firm will keep an eye on new, emerging trends, pointing to esports, cannabis and foodtech as examples of markets that have exploded in the last couple of years.
AnD anticipates watching the market and being very much open to what it is saying.
“You have to be open to what you don’t know; don’t just be limited to what you do know,” Glasberg said.
Featured image photo of firm partners, from left, Roy Geva Glasberg, Lee Moser, Kfir Kachlon and Ariel Cohen, courtesy of AnD Ventures.
Blogroll illustration: Li-Anne Dias
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