Israel’s OurCrowd announces $60 million investment from ORIX

By Edil Corneille

OurCrowd, a venture investing platform, has received an investment of $60 million from Japan’s ORIX. This is ORIX’s first collaboration with Israel’s startup sector, with OurCrowd planning to provide the diversified financial services giant access to a wide variety of technologies and companies.

Under the terms of the agreement, ORIX and OurCrowd will collaborate in agreed focus areas and will establish financial products and investment opportunities suited for the Japanese and global markets. This will include curated access to both venture capital funds and individual portfolio companies on a deal-by-deal basis.

CEO of ORIX UK, Kiyoshi Habiro said, “We are excited about investing in OurCrowd, Israel’s most active venture investor and one of the world’s most innovative venture capital platforms. We intend to be active partners with OurCrowd and help them accelerate their already impressive growth, while bringing the best of Israeli tech to Japan’s large industrial and financial sectors.”

Over the past several years, Japan-Israel trade has increased significantly with Japan becoming one of the largest investors in Israeli tech and with over 90 Japanese companies now active in Israel. ORIX and OurCrowd will work to further increase cooperation between the two countries and enhance opportunities for Israeli startups throughout Asia.

OurCrowd CEO Jon Medved said, “ORIX is a global leader in diversified business and financial services who will strengthen OurCrowd in many ways. We are enthusiastic about the potential to further transform the venture capital asset class together and provide a strong bridge for our innovative companies to the important Asian markets.”

Established in 1964 from its start in the leasing business, ORIX has advanced into neighbouring fields and is presently undertaking a wide range of businesses such as corporate finance, industrial/ICT equipment, environment and energy, automobile-related, real estate-related, private equity investment and concession, banking and life insurance businesses. Since entering Hong Kong in 1971, ORIX has been operating its businesses globally by establishing locations in 37 countries and regions across the world.

The OurCrowd community consists of almost 60,000 registered investors from over 183 countries. OurCrowd has more than $1.5 billion in commitments and has made investments in more than 220 companies and 23 funds. OurCrowd already has had many exits, including the IPOs of Beyond Meat and Lemonade, the acquisition of JUMP Bike by Uber, the acquisition of Briefcam by Canon, the acquisition of Argus by Continental, the acquisition of Crosswise by Oracle, the acquisition of Replay by Intel, and many more.

Nomura International acted as Adviser to OurCrowd in connection with the transaction.