Fund: CE Ventures

Featured Fund :: CE Ventures

CE Ventures is a venture capital fund that provides end-to-end support to its portfolio companies, leveraging its extensive China relationships. CE Ventures is backed by clients of CreditEase China, a national leader in wealth management, credit management, microfinance investment, and microcredit loan origination and servicing. CreditEase is internationally backed by notable institutional investors, including Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia.

CreditEase partnered with venture-capital investors Tayman Kan and Benjamin Weiss to create the CreditEase Israel Innovation Fund (CEIIF) in 2015, making CreditEase the first Chinese financial institution with a physical office in Israel. In 2015, the first fund (CEIIF I) reportedly raised $32 million within eight days from 180 CreditEase clients throughout China and invested in eight Israeli startups, including imVision Technologies, CellMining, Knowmail, Kaminario, Corephotonics, Saguna Networks, DiACardio and GamEffective.

On the heels of that success CreditEase set up CEIIF II in November 2016 and in early 2017 announced a first close at $32.2 million toward a target capital commitment of $50 million.

How do they do it? “CreditEase is the No. 1 company in the world in peer-to-peer lending and microfinance,” Weiss told JPost. “They started it in China long before the Americans learned how to do it.”

Funds :: Quick facts

CreditEase Israel Innovation Fund I (CEIIF I)

1. Closed in October 2015 with $30 million

2. Targeted early and later-stage start-ups

3. 8 investments in Israeli start-ups

CreditEase Israel Innovation Fund II (CEIIF II)

1. First closing in Jan 2017 at $32.2 million. Target is $50 million.

2. CEIIF II will invest in six key sectors:
   

3. Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR)

4. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

5. Digital Healthcare

6. Internet of Things (IoT)

7. Cloud and Data Storage

8. Advanced Manufacturing

“We know that some Chinese Internet giants, such as Alibaba and Tencent, already make large investments in Israel,” CreditEase senior vice president Dawei Liu said. “But ordinary Chinese people and businesses outside Hong Kong don’t know they can participate in this process. We bring them to Israel and bring Israel to them.”

Looking forward, Liu stated, “What we see taking place in the future is a $1 billion fund if [CEIIF] works hard and delivers good results.”

Sources: JPost, CE Ventures, CreditEase

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