Suit up! New Palestinian venture capital fund will help twelve Palestinian start ups find their feet.
An Israeli resident who has been backing that country’s superior high tech development for nearly two decades has now co-launched a Palestinian venture capital fund called Sadara. Yadin Kauffman and Saed Nashef officially inaugurated the new fund yesterday at an event attended by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salem Fayyad.
Financed by heavyweight capitalists such as Google, Cisco Systems, AOL founder Steve Case, the George Soros Economic Development Fund, and the European Investment Bank, this launch heralds a significant milestone for Palestinian innovators. Although the fund is designed to develop software companies and startups, we’re hoping for a much-needed green thrust.
$28 out of the planned $50 million has already been raised to fund 12 Palestinian start up companies, Nashef told Globes, adding that they would continue to invest in approximately three new companies each year.
“We’ve just begun operations, and we prefer to wait until we have a complete picture about the opportunities in the sector,” he said.
Sadara’s co-founder Yadin Kauffman, a lawyer from New York who now makes his home in Israel, began working with Athena Venture Partners in 1987 and currently works with Veritas Venture Partners.
According to the Society of Kauffman Fellows, the Middle East Venture Capital Fund is being established to make investments in export-oriented, high-growth software companies and start ups originating in the Palestinian Territories.
Saed Nashef is the founder and CTO of Equiom, Inc., a 70-person software consultancy and project outsourcing firm with operations in Washington and Colorado, and founder and Managing Director of Equiom-MENA, which provides offshore software outsourcing services from the West Bank to companies in the US and Europe.
Combined with the scars of political unrest, the wrath of climate change is sure to increasingly unlash its fury on the Palestinian people. Water, food, power, pollution, and waste management are just a small selection of environmental challenges they face. This new fund has the power to meet those problems head on, starting with job creation.
:: Globes
More on Cleantech in the Middle East:
Sharjah Students Win Prestigious Award for Making Energy From Noise
Cloud Invented: Will Solve Climate Change
This Year’s US/Israel Venture Summit: Where Capital Lifts Innovation Off the Ground
image via webflunkie
Author: Tafline Laylin
As a tour leader who led “eco-friendly” camping trips throughout North America, Tafline soon realized that she was instead leaving behind a trail of gas fumes, plastic bottles and Pringles. In fact, wherever she traveled – whether it was Viet Nam or South Africa or England – it became clear how inefficiently the mandate to re-think our consumer culture is reaching the general public. Born in Iran, raised in South Africa and the United States, she currently splits her time between Africa and the Middle East. Tafline can be reached at tafline (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
Cool!