VENTURE CAPITAL

Agriculture & Food Technology Investments

Imagine creating new ways to produce abundant, nutrient-rich food in a world where more than one billion people are undernourished and every five seconds a child dies of starvation. Imagine pioneering solutions to sweeping environmental changes that threaten such essentials as water, air and soil.

With our collective future at stake, scientists and entrepreneurs at the Israeli agro-technology industries have been imagining and successfully developing solutions to urgent agricultural, technological and environmental challenges for over half a century.

Israel’s Agro-Technology

Israel’s agro-technology industry is characterized by intensive research and development of innovative systems and products. It is undoubtedly in a unique position to make a global difference. This fact is sufficient to help Israel change the global environment in agricultural fields, as is the relatively small size of the State of Israel that enables it to serve as a natural laboratory for agricultural R&D, as a result of the frequent changes in its climatic regions, landscapes and geography. The State of Israel also serves as fertile ground for extensive cooperation between many officials, including scientists and government officials, providing a tremendous advantage for interested parties and enabling extensive and successful technological financial activity in matters related to the environment and agriculture. In most of the world’s countries, although large sectors of the population are engaged in agriculture, there is still a steadily increasing shortage of food; while in Israel, although only a small minority, about 2%, is engaged in agriculture and development of technologies in the field of agriculture, the country still exports fresh agricultural products to most of the world’s countries, as well as advanced technologies for agricultural development.

Israel’s Recognition

In recent years, Israel has been the recipient, on occasion, of global recognition in the fields of agricultural technology, both by global-economic organizations, such as the OECD, in which Israel recently became a member, by the U.N. and by magnates, such as Bill and Melinda Gates, who are aware of Israel’s activity and power to bring about global environmental change, and who contribute their time and money to make this goal a reality.

Some of the faculty’s research achievements and new discoveries include drip irrigation and fertilization; raising tomatoes, fruits and vegetables with a long shelf life and improved taste that prevent diseases; intensive agriculture in arid places; solar disinfection of the ground – non-chemical methods for plant disease control in the ground; and many others in the field of animal sciences, etc.
Israel is also known as a global business center and as the preferred choice of leading global investors and players in all the fields, and in the ever developing field of agricultural technology.

For example, Israel is ranked just after the U.S. for the number of companies listed on the NASDAQ, and for its large number of companies listed on European stock exchanges. Israel excels in its integration of prominent research capabilities and successes and its ability to implement them as part of business projects, which transform its research successes into profitable business successes.
Consequently, and due to the fact that there is no private venture capital fund designated specifically for investments and promoting this industry, a decision was made to set up this fund.