Yozma

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Capital raised by year in the venture capital industry in Israel during the 1990's, ~$8 billion raised total. Capital Raised by the Venture Capital Industry in Israel in the 1990's.webp
Capital raised by year in the venture capital industry in Israel during the 1990’s, ~$8 billion raised total.

Yozma, Yozma Program, or Yozma Fund was a venture capital organization in Israel that initially started out as a government funded program in 1993 to help kick start venture capital, angel investing, and private equity in Israel's economy. $20 million of government subsidies went to the Yozma Fund, the other $80 million the government provided went to match other foreign and domestic firms, at 40%, to create their own venture capital funds in Israel. The VC companies could buy-back the governments equity stake over a 5 year period, and most did. The Yozma Fund privatized in 1997 and became the Yozma Group. [2]

Contents

Background

Immigration to Israel .mw-parser-output .legend{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .legend-color{display:inline-block;min-width:1.25em;height:1.25em;line-height:1.25;margin:1px 0;text-align:center;border:1px solid black;background-color:transparent;color:black}.mw-parser-output .legend-text{} Total Immigrants Immigrants from the USSR and Post-Soviet states Immigration to Israel.webp
Immigration to Israel
  Total Immigrants
  Immigrants from the USSR and Post-Soviet states

Inbal is a government owned insurance company that underwrote and guaranteed up to 70% of losses for venture capital firms from 1992-1998. The Israeli Government helped start and fund business incubators and an R&D cluster during the 1990s. Many immigrants came to Israel during the fall of the soviet union in the 1990s post-Soviet aliyah and about ⅓ of them were skilled enigineers and scientists. [4]

Yozma funds

Yozma Initial Funds [5]
NameEst.CapitalForeign LPLP CountryPortfolioExitsExit Rate
Eurofund1994$20M Daimler-Benz, DEG Germany 14750%
Gemini1993$36MAdvent Venture PartnersUSA251352%
Inventech1993$20MVan Leer GroupNetherlands331648%
Jerusalem Venture Partners 1993$20MOxtonUSA121083%
Medica1995$15MMVPUSA10550%
Nitzanim1994$20M AVX, KyoceraJapan, Japan13754%
Polaris (Pitango)1993$20MCMSUSA191368%
Star1993$20MTVM, Siemens Germany271556%
Vertex Holdings 1996$39MVertex Int., Singapore techUSA, Singapore291655%
Walden1993$33MWalden InternationalUSA211048%
Yozma1993$20MNoneIsrael161063%
Total$263M21712256%

Yozma 2.0

In 2024, the Israel Innovation Authority has launched a Yozma 2.0 with government funds of $155 million, looking to raise $700 million from private institutional venture capital investors, at a 30% match. [6] [7]

Hebrew translation

Yozma translates from Hebrew to English as initiative. [8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "(PDF) Venture capital start-up co-evolution and the emergence & development of Israel's new high tech cluster".
  2. ↑ "Policies for financing entrepreneurship through venture capital: learning from the successes of Israel and Taiwan" (PDF). kenney.faculty.ucdavis.edu.
  3. ↑ "Total Immigration to Israel from the Former Soviet Union". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
  4. ↑ Yin, David. "What Makes Israel's Innovation Ecosystem So Successful". Forbes.
  5. ↑ "(PDF) VC Policy: Yozma Program 15-Years perspective".
  6. ↑ "Israeli gov't launches $155m Yozma 2.0 VC fund". January 8, 2024 – via Globes.
  7. ↑ "Israel Innovation Authority launches new fund to catalyze $700 million investment in Israeli VCs". ctech. April 21, 2024.
  8. ↑ "Take Some Initiative! - Streetwise Hebrew Ep. 427". TLV1 Podcasts. TLV1. 3 September 2024. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
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