Diversified conglomerate Reliance Industries yesterday agreed to invest $25m in Jerusalem Innovation Incubator (JII), an early-stage program also backed by communications equipment producer Motorola Solutions, Times of India reported.
Reliance will take a 20% stake in the incubator as a result of its financial commitment, and expects technologies emerging from the incubator to benefit its telecom subsidiary, Jio, which is currently expanding its 4G mobile network across Israel.
Motorola Solutions will also hold a 20% stake in JII, while equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd will own 60%. The incubator was launched last month by a consortium that also includes Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s tech transfer office Yissum .
JII is based at OurCrowd’s headquarters in Jerusalem and will focus on areas such as big data and analytics, artificial intelligence, fintech, data storage, the internet of things and computer vision technology. It will invest in startups in tranches over a period of eight years.
The scheme forms part of the National Innovation Authority, Israel’s incubator initiative, and is expected to support approximately 50 startups. Applications for the first cohort will be accepted in the second half of 2017.
– The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.