The venture capital fund is expanding its Israel office and its pace of investment in Israeli startups.
Intel Capital today announced that it is expanding its team in Tel Aviv. Roi Bar-Kat and Noam Kaiser are joining Yair Shoham as partners and Investment Directors and Intel Capital has also promoted Adi Caspi Zepkowitz to Associate and has recruited Shira Vissoker as Business Analyst.
Shoham said, "Intel Capital is a corporate VC fund that does not 'color' the business direction of its portfolio companies. We work to help the entrepreneur succeed. To date, we invested $435 million in Israel in 90 companies, of which 30 have matured into exits."
In 2018, Intel Capital invested $180 million in 14 Israeli companies and plans to keep up its investment pace of the past few years.
Shoham, Intel Capital Israel investment director added, "The decision to expand our local team was driven by the importance the fund sees in Israeli entrepreneurs and innovation. Intel Capital provides unique value to entrepreneurs, including access to customers and mega-corporations across the globe, ties with other funds and a proactive and supportive approach to help our portfolio companies grow. The new Intel Capital team in Israel will invest in companies in rounds A and above, while keeping in touch with entrepreneurs in earlier stages out of our desire to help companies find their path early on."
Shoham stressed that Intel Capital goes beyond chips and server with investments in cyber, AI, IoT, enterprise software, cloud computing, autonomous vehicles, 5G and more. "I believe Israel has innovation to offer in all of these areas. In the coming year, we will expand our operations in Israel."
Intel Capital announced today that it had taken part in the $35 million financing round of Israeli startup proteanTecs, which develops solutions for the prediction of failures in electronics.