Pitango
Pitango offices at Akershtein Towers, Herzliya
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| Private | |
| Industry | Venture capital |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Founder | Rami Kalish |
| Headquarters | Herzliya, Israel |
| AUM | USD 1.800 million |
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Number of employees
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~30 |
| Website | www |
Pitango Venture Capital, established in 1993, is Israel's largest venture capital fund with over $1.8 billion under management. Pitango is focused on seed, expansion and late stage companies in core technologies, consumer, and Life Sciences. The firm's investors include Time Warner, Citigroup, Eastman Kodak, Deutsche Bank and HarbourVest Partners.
The fund was founded as Polaris Venture Capital in 1993 by Rami Kalish, as part of a government initiative named the Yozma program ("Initiative" in Hebrew); which offered attractive tax incentives to any foreign venture-capital investments in Israel and offered to double any investment with funds from the government.
In 1996, Kalish was joined by Chemi Peres, son of Israel former president Shimon Peres, to create Polaris Fund II, which raised more than $100 million, Polaris II invested in 35 high-tech companies. Some were partially funded by another Israeli VC firm, Eucalyptus Ventures. When the investments proved successful, Polaris II and Eucalyptus merged into Fund III in early 2000.
In 2001, Polaris Venture Capital changed its name to Pitango Venture Capital, to avoid confusion with Boston based Polaris Venture Partners (even though the Boston firm was founded after Pitango in 1996, the Israeli firm chose to change its name). Pitango takes its name from the semi-wild Surinam Cherry that grows in Israel.
Pitango Venture Capital Fund IV followed in 2004, and in 2007, Pitango V.
In 2010, with the support of the Israeli government, Pitango established the first fund in the country focused on investment in the Arab-Israeli sector, called Al-Bawader (Arabic for “early signs”).
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