Mony Hassid (pictured) has joined US-based chip company Qualcomm’s corporate venturing unit after effectively eight years at Motorola Mobility Ventures in Israel.
By email Hassid said he was at Motorola Ventures in Israel for eight years, first six as Motorola Ventures and then from 2011 with Motorola Mobility Ventures.
Search engine provider Google acquired phone maker Motorola Mobility last year and its Google Ventures team only invests in North America currently.
Hassid has joined Qualcomm Ventures as a managing director and still based in Israel. Nagraj Kashyap, head of Qualcomm Ventures, said he hired Hassid following Qualcomm’s acquisition of one of his portfolio companies, DesignArt Networks, in August for between $120m and $140m. DesignArt offers system-on-chip (SoC) and software products to allow operators to expand the data capacity of their networks and Motorola invested an undisclosed amount in February 2008’s series B round.
In his LinkedIn profile, Hassid said he “built the Israel office from scratch in 2004 and invested in 16 start-ups since then with a [decent] ROI [return on investment, from five exits of more than $100m each] and a meaningful synergy and strategic gain for Motorola. Probably, the most active and appreciated strategic investor in Israel.”
Other exits from Hassid’s Motorola portfolio included Broadlight, which was acquired by Broadcom last year for $195m; Amobee, acquired by Singtel for $321m also in 2012; WorldMate sold to Carlson Wagonlit Travel for $20m in November; Coppergate, acquired by SigmaDesign in 2009 for $160m; Lumus (no disclosed purchaser after a B round in 2005); MobilEye (no disclosed purchaser after raising $157m since 1998 from Goldman Sachs and Motorola among others); Camero, which was acquired by SK Group in December 2011 for a reported “tens of millions”.
Hassid said Motorola’s other Israel investments, Shellcase, which restructured in late 2004, and Surf Communications Solutions that had an undisclosed purchaser after a $21m B round in 2001, were not part of his portfolio.
His remaining portfolio at the time of his departure last month included Onavo, NextNine, TuneWiki, Catch Media, Shaker and Amimon.