Australian venture Capital firm Square Peg Capital, led by the Liberman family among others, is planning to invest up to $100 million a year in the U.S. and Israel, according to a report in The Australian.
Founded in 2012 with the merger of several firms, Square Peg declares that it aspires to be the leading Asia Pacific based investor in venture and growth stage online and technology companies.
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It has already spent $50m on 19 different investments, mostly in Australian start-up companies. It has invested small amounts in new companies like taxi booking app goCatch, global advertising data venture Standard Media Index, travel website Wego, US e-commerce group Shipping Easy and online beauty products supplier Bellabox.
But now the firm intends to invest larger sums in already established companies.
Mr Bassat said the company was now embarking on the next stage of its evolution where it would target the Israel and US markets for the first time.
As co-Founder Paul Bassat told the Australian, “Provided we find the opportunities, which is a big proviso because we are not going to spend money for the sake of it, we have the capability to invest in the range of $50m-$100m on an annual basis across all geographies.”
“Looking out five-10 years time, the likelihood is that Australia will remain our biggest market, Israel will be next, and the US will be the third-biggest. The Israeli market is by any measure the No 2 market globally behind Silicon Valley.”
Another Square Peg leader is Dan Krasnostein, who has just moved to Israel where he will manage the firm’s operations there. He will work with Arad Naveh, a former Cisco Exec, who is now a Square Peg venture partner.
Tel Aviv-based Feedvisor, an algorithmic pricing and business intelligence platform for online retailers $6m in a series-A round led by Square Peg in August.
“We started spending time in Israel over the past six-12 months and frankly we were staggered by the opportunities, staggered by the entrepreneurs and angel investors. People in the tech ecosystem were very supportive and welcoming, ’’ Mr Bassat said.
