IVA Newsletter No. 2

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this issue of the IVA Newsletter. The IVA’s focus for 2008 will be to promote greater understanding of venture capital’s role in the Israeli economy, and encourage entrepreneurial activity and innovation through:

	Facilitating information exchange, communication, and association among all persons engaged in the investment of risk capital in Israel.
	Align expectations between the Venture Capital Industry and the Entrepreneurs
	Promoting sound public policy to encourage and retain an eco-system of innovation and excellence
	Providing a forum for the professional development of its members
	Encouraging Israeli and foreign institutional investors, including corporate and public pension funds and insurance companies, to invest in the Israeli Venture Capital Industry.
	Cooperating with all stage investors, institutional investors and individuals including angel investors to invest in, and provide advice to, early stage Israeli growth companies
	Fostering a Culture of Innovation
	Strengthen Israel’s Global competitiveness
	Enhancing ties with leading venture capital/private equity associations around the world, particularly in the U.S., Europe, and The Far East

Dr. Orna Berry, IVA Chairperson

The IVA endorses several philanthropic organizations that encourage the exposure of young people to technological advances and entrepreneurial approach. In this edition we feature TMURA a non-profit organization established by leading Israeli venture capital funds to involve the high-tech sector in supporting charitable activities.

Tmura highlights from 2007:
For a visual summary of 2007, click here

	Donors in 2007 include: Approtect, Asankya, Atria Medical, Certagon, Checkmarx, ConicIT, DesignArt Networks, Expand Networks, Fring, iamba, Intratech Medical, IT Structures, JetPrep, Lucid Logix, MobileMax, MyStudiyo, Neocleus, NeuroSonix, Notal Vision, Olista, Optimal Test, Panaya, PrimeSense, Sagitta, Support Space, and Trivnet.
	VC referrals of donor companies in 2007: Gemini – 5 companies; Giza, Naiot – 4; Veritas – 3; Evergreen, Jerusalem Global, Pitango – 3; BRM, Carmel, GlenRock, Magma, Tamir Fishman – 2
	Tmura generated over $660,000 for charity this year from successful exits – most notably, from the Actimize acquisition and BioLineRx IPO.
	Tmura’s matching grants program generated $1,000,000 in new funding for youth and education programs in Israel.
	For the full year 2007, Tmura signed up 28 new equity donor companies – another new record (eclipsing the previous yearly high of 23).

We are pleased to welcome the following new members to the IVA
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE)
UBS AG
Giza Venture Capital

The IVA will be adding a news feed from Globes to the home page of the website. The new feed will include up-to-date headlines on VC news.

Panel with Sever Plotzker, Yediot Achronot
January 4, 2008 | read more

Emerging markets hold the key to Israeli VC success'
December 25, 2007 | read more

Stagnant market may mean trouble for local VCs in 2008 December 25, 2007 | read more

Opportunities, East and West
December 23, 2007 | read more



The IVA recently completed its Q4 committee meetings for 2007 including the Annual General Meeting. Highlights included:
	IVA Conference Committee co-chaired by Eli Barkat and Eddy Shalev. The 2008 conference will be held at the Avenue Convention Center in Airport City. This year's conference discussions will be related to the topic "From innovation to commercialization".
Sponsorship information is now available on the IVA website. Further details of this year’s innovative program will be posted in the coming weeks.

	IVA Marketing Committee chaired by Chemi Peres . As part of our ongoing effort to provide our members with current data on the Israeli VC industry, the IVA is collaborating with d&a hi-tech information ltd to produce the “IVA Knowledge Portal”.
The portal will be launched in early 2008 and will be accessible through the IVA website. Data to be available include: Maps of IVA; VC Maps; Israel VC backed companies; Exit maps; Leading Entrepreneur Map.


December 2007:

The Future of Entertainment: The IVA, in collaboration with the BIRD Foundation and the Inter Disciplinary Center (IDC), held a join executive seminar "The Future of Entertainment". Keynote speaker, Mr. Don Levy, SVP Marketing and Communications, Sony Pictures Imageworks presented his insights on new media innovation. This invitation-only event was attended by senior members of the Israeli venture capital community, executives from the media and communication industries and leading innovators from internet and mobile companies.

IMA's Mobile World Barcelona Demo: IVA recently cooperated with the Israel Mobile Association (IMA) in judging Israeli contenders to participate in the IMA’s Executive Demo Center at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress to be held in February 2008. Representatives from Gemini, Vertex, Genesis, Evergreen and Plenus participated in the judging sessions.

Milken Institute’s Financial and Policy Medical Innovation Lab: The IVA participated in the Israel Center of the Milken Institute’s Financial and Policy Medical Innovation lab. Participants included leading medical researchers and representatives of the Israeli and U.S. bio-tech and medical device industry. For a summary of this event, click here

IVA Roundtable Discussion with Ernst & Young: IVA members recently participated in a roundtable discussion with Ernst & Young. Yoram Tietz, Managing Partner and Oren Bar-On, Senior Partner - Technology Practice, presented Global M&A trends benchmark report and the results of a survey on executive compensation behavior among private IT U.S. companies.


May 19-20, 2008

Annual IVA conference for 2008
April 8-11, 2008

Israel Trade Mission to Texas The IVA in conjunction with the Texas-Israel Chamber of Commerce is planning a trade mission to Texas in early April. Participation in the delegation will be open to IVA member VCs and their portfolio companies whose business is relevant to the mission. The two main areas of focus will be medical equipment/devices and IT/Communications. The visit will include meetings with Texas based global high tech companies and multi-national organizations based in Dallas and Austin.


4 February 2008: 08:30 - 17:30

Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya Executive Seminar "Leadership – Improve yourself " Leading Lecturer: (Columbia University) Prof. Caryn Block. For further details and registration, please contact: Galit Ophir, Marketing Manager, Executive Education Programs, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya Tel: 054-4499493, Fax: 09-9527619

IVA Newsletter No.2 | www.iva.co.il