Israel’s OurCrowd Off to a Fast Start, Completes $12 Million in Funding

Raises $5.5M in Series A funding for its Crowdfunding Platform, and $6.5M for 12 companies

Emerges as a new leader in Equity Crowdfunding

JERUSALEM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Israel’s OurCrowd announced today that it has closed $5.5M in Series A funding and successfully closed 12 company funding rounds from accredited investors in its first quarter of operation with an average deal size of $500,000. Total capital raised for companies and the platform now totals over $12M.

OurCrowd is a new and innovative way to invest in Israeli startups. As an equity Crowdfunding platform, OurCrowd identifies companies seeking early stage investment and brings these opportunities to its membership who choose which deals they participate in via OurCrowd-managed partnerships. OurCrowd co-invests in all of these deals, and manages the ongoing investments in the companies, including Board participation. Membership in OurCrowd is limited to only those meeting stringent accreditation requirements. Further, deals being funded are kept confidential and are not disclosed to the general public until complete. Therefore, Our Crowd is compliant with today’s regulatory environment.

OurCrowd Founder and CEO, Jon Medved, said, “With completion of our initial platform funding round and 12 new company deals, we have emerged as a leader in the increasingly competitive equity Crowdfunding space. We are focused on linking global accredited investors with Israel’s dynamic and exciting Start-up Nation scene, which is generating investment opportunities unlike any I have seen in the past.”

Jon Medved, a serial entrepreneur, was previously the co-founder and CEO of Vringo (AMEX: VRNG), and Israel Seed Partners, one of Israel’s leading venture capital groups with over $260M under management.

Medved is joined in this new venture by an experienced team of 10 investment professionals, including Steven Blumgart, formerly of Glencore; Pini Lozowick, formerly of Broadcom and Alta Berkeley; Elan Zivotofsky, formerly of Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers; Zack Miller formerly of SeekingAlpha; Gadi Mazor, formerly of Onset; Robbie Citron of Jerusalem Global; Jay Kalish of Allot; and David Arnovitz formerly of SecureWare.

Steven Blumgart, OurCrowd’s Chairman, noted that, “What sets OurCrowd apart is our highly differentiated approach. We are not a typical ‘Crowdfunding site’ in that we are an experienced team, working with a highly exclusive set of deals and investors. We diligence our deals carefully, invest our own capital, and manage each investment as the general partner of a company-specific investment partnership.”

The first deals completed on the site so far include:

• AbesMarket.com - The Leading Organic E-Commerce Site, co-investment with Accel Partners, Index, and Carmel Ventures.
• Sherpa - The new internet information venture from Bob Rosenschein, founder and CEO of Answers.com (sold to Summit Partner's AFCV Holdings for $127 million), co-investment with Cedar.
• TradeOS - The new freight forwarding automation venture from Zvi Schreiber, the founder and CEO of Tradeum.com. (sold to Vertical Net for $450 million).
• Parko - launching a unique social parking solution and recently won the Israel Mobile Challenge Competition sponsored by Google.
• Fireblade - leading company for protecting websites from malicious bots and scraping, co-investment with Jeffrey Citron’s (founder of Vonage) KEC Holdings.
• Consumer Physics - building a pocket spectrometer for smart phones, enabling a variety of consumer apps, co-investment with Khosla Ventures.

Elan Zivotofsky, OurCrowd’s Dealflow Partner, commented: “We are seeing an impressive number of high quality companies seeking funding on our platform. As we continue to grow our investor base and our investment team, we aim to play a major role in solving the much discussed ‘Series A Funding Crunch’ by providing a new way to raise these essential rounds for promising startups.”

About OurCrowd

OurCrowd is an equity Crowdfunding platform for accredited investors who wish to invest in Israeli startups. Managed by a team of well-known investment professionals lead by serial entrepreneur Jon Medved, OurCrowd selects opportunities, invests its own capital, and brings opportunities to its membership. Members choose those deals they invest in via OurCrowd-managed partnerships. OurCrowd investors must meet stringent accreditation criteria and invest a minimum of $10,000 per deal. OurCrowd provides post investment support to its portfolio companies, assigning industry experts as mentors and taking Board seats.

For press information and access please register as a journalist, at www.ourcrowd.com.

For press materials including this release, photos and screenshots, bios and graphics, visit our press kit online.

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