China's Search for Technology Leads to Growing VC Investment in Israel

(Forbes) Russell Flannery - Chinese companies are looking carefully at Israel, an influential tech power. Hong Kong-based consultant Michael Feldman said, "Over the past couple of years we've witnessed a huge increase in action between China and Israel....Li Ka Shing (the world's richest Chinese), through his personal fund Horizons Ventures based in Hong Kong, has invested in over 25 Israeli companies and has had some big successes like with Waze, which was sold to Google for $1b. Other Chinese investors, particularly in tech, have started to pay attention and wonder what Mr. Li is seeing that they're not." "We're seeing everyone from conglomerates like Fosun and China Everbright who are investing in tech and medical, technology companies like Qihoo 360 (which is a limited partner in two Israeli venture capital funds and invested in four companies including cyber security and image search), Lenovo, Xiaomi and Huawei, as well as Chinese VC firms which don't have a big profile in the U.S. such as Ceyuan Ventures." "I'm seeing founders from China's biggest Internet companies, family offices, and even mainland coal bosses who are putting a small part of the their personal fortunes into Israel. And it's not just China; Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten has a keen eye on Israel after having acquired another Israeli company, Viber, earlier this year."


2014-09-24 00:00:00

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