David Halperin, one of the owners of Israel’s Halperin Optical chain, and venture capitalist Amitay Yamin have set up Contrago Ventures.
Its $50m debut fund sourced from undisclosed corporations and angel investors will back startups in cloud computing, cybersecurity, financial- and food-tech, artificial intelligence and machine learning, according to the Jerusalem Post.
A number of other VCs are creating debut funds using quasi-strategic angel investors.
Jon Gordon said his new VC firm, HC9 Ventures, was “an interesting hybrid – it is actually all strategic individuals (healthcare executives and entrepreneurs) rather than organisations.
“This allows us to work with competing entities without having to choose favourites.”
Editor’s Note: GCV Israel’s event dinner will be 29 March.