The family office fund of Dieter Schwarz, one of the wealthiest man in Germany, is looking for Israeli technologies and expects to invest millions of dollars in Israeli companies.
German investment fund Zukunftsfonds Heilbronn (ZFHN) will begin investing in Israeli technology. The man behind the fund is Dieter Schwarz, one of the wealthiest men in Germany and one of the 50 richest people in the world. Schwarz made his money by founding two large retail chains: supermarket chain Lidl and Kaufland, a Walmart-type chain of huge department stores. Schwarz, whose wealth is estimated at $20 billion, is the founder and owner of Schwarz Gruppe, the world's fourth largest retailer and the second largest in Europe.
ZFHN, founded by CEO Thomas Vilinger (52), is a fund investing in technological ventures that has been in operation since 2006. After doing business for 12 years, the fund has decided to begin investing in Israeli ventures. Vilinger has visited Israel for this purpose, where he met with local private investors such as Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP) cofounder and chairperson Marius Nacht and the Recanati family and with institutions of higher learning, such as the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.
The purpose of Vilinger's visit is to establish connections with more investors in order to make joint investments with them, and with institutions in which technology is likely to be developed in areas in which the fund wants to invest. Vilinger told "Globes" about his fund's investment strategy, which differs from that of an ordinary venture capital fund and explains why he wants to bring Israelis to Germany, but not to Berlin.