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Israeli venture capital mission for India
Thursday, 15 April 2004, 19:30 IST
JERUSALEM: Top executives of leading Israeli venture capital funds are to meet with major Indian IT concerns in Bangalore next week to discuss ways of establishing cooperative hi-tech ventures.
The 11-member mission is the first of its kind to India.
It will be led under the auspices of the Israel Venture Association (IVA) by Chemi (Nehemiya) Peres, managerial general partner of Pitango, one of Israel's largest VC funds, and IVA President Eitan Hillman.
Other participating executives include representatives of Giza Venture Capital, Israel's second largest VC fund, Tamir Fishman, Israel Seed, Concord Ventures, BRM and Vertex.
The mission will be joined in India by Intel Capital's resident representative in Bangalore, David Keynan, and the first secretary for Economic Affairs at the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, Mouneer Agabriya.
The Israeli team will be in Bangalore Apr 20-22. The first day will be devoted to meetings at company headquarters with executives of Tejas Networks, Wipro, Infosys and Sasken and the second day to a workshop to discuss with local VCs, entrepreneurs and executives alternative models of building Indo-Israeli joint ventures including legal, finance and management structures.
"The mission, which will focus mainly on IT, software and telecommunications, is essentially an exploratory and learning experience in which both sides will brief each other on the local scene and modus operandi in their respective countries," Peres, son of Israeli statesman and former deputy prime minister Shimon Peres, told IANS.
"Our aim is to expose the Israeli VC sector to Indian business. Sufficient company tie ups already exist at the private level and these are growing."
Upbeat Peres anticipates that the mission will boost two-way exchanges and business relationships.
"In a global economy it is no longer possible to retain a national monopoly or control over locally produced scientific knowledge or technology," said Peres.
"Israel realises this and is increasingly becoming globally oriented, learning the cultural nuances of doing business with foreign partners and how to export more efficiently to foreign markets."
The same goes for industrial research and development where Israel has established a qualitative niche as a world leader.
"Our small domestic markets mean that we will also increasingly have to share and jointly develop innovative technologies with foreign partners if our business are to compete with world rivals for a share of the huge and developing markets of India, China and Russia. Similar conclusions are being reached by governments and businesses in these countries," said Peres.
"The global research and development sector is relatively uninfluenced by the disparities of local and regional manpower costs. Rising consumer wealth in developing Asian economies is likely to level off and reach parity with developed European and American economies."
Israeli VC funds raised a total $1.18 billion in 2003, mostly from outside sources mainly in the US, Japan and Singapore.
With growing signs of an end to the global recession the forecast for 2004-05 is set at between $1.5 and $2 billion.
Since 1992 Israel's 20 largest venture capital funds raised some $6.4 billion, exclusively allocated to investments in Israel technology companies. Of this amount $4.3 billion was raised between 2000-03 when the global economy was in recession.
Source: IANS
Source: IANS