Venture capital fund Vine Ventures announced the completion of a $236 million fundraising round for its third fund, which surpassed its original fundraising target and is the fund's largest to date. Following the move, total assets managed by the fund rose to over $500 million, just five years after its establishment.
New and veteran investors participated in the funding round, including CEOs of some of the world's largest companies, major global investment managers, and family office firms. The fund, which collaborates with companies along the technological axis between the US and Israel, is expected to allocate about 50% of the new fund's capital to Israeli companies.
Half of the new fund's capital earmarked for Israeli companies
Since completing the fundraising for the previous fund, Vine has focused its activity in Israel and deepened its on-the-ground investment sourcing, alongside maintaining its US presence and international mandate. The second fund holds significant holdings, starting from the seed stage, in three companies - Eon, Wonderful, and Ornn - with the majority of the second fund's value concentrated in Israeli companies. The third fund will continue this approach, investing in early-stage and growth-stage companies in the fields of enterprise software, AI infrastructure, cyber, and fintech in the US, Israel, and Europe.
Eric Reiner, founder and partner at Vine Ventures, addressed the investment strategy and stated, "We are not just investing in Israel, but allocating capital along the strategic axis between the two most important technological ecosystems in the world. The world-class technology models, scale, and capital are brought by the US. Israel builds the underlying layer that makes technology actually work, as well as the application, security, and cyber layers, in which we have heavily invested. Our approach is to reach deep into both markets and connect them in ways that no one else can."
Alongside the establishment of the third fund, Vine announced steps to expand its team and advisory group. The fund established a senior advisory group including Michael Linton, chairman of Snap Inc. and former CEO of Sony Entertainment; Gary Reiner, former Chief Information Officer of General Electric and most recently an Operating Partner at General Atlantic; and Bob Mylod, chairman of Booking.com. In addition, Adam Valkin, formerly of General Catalyst, who leads the fund's investment activity from Boston, and Idan Tendler, formerly of Palo Alto Networks, joined the investment team.
Reiner added that "at Vine, we have always believed in the power of focused and involved partnerships with entrepreneurs to generate exceptional results, and investments from the third fund will continue to embody this philosophy. Our investors believe that in light of the success of our portfolio companies to date, and alongside the joining of Adam, Michael, and Idan, who bring extensive experience with them, Vine is only at the beginning of the road and will continue to identify additional opportunities worth billions of dollars already at their earliest stages."