Giza Polish Ventures

Pioneer VC fund for innovative technology enterprises.

• Unique possibility to invest in technology enterprises with global development potential,
• Global reach fund,
• Fund size: PLN 84M,
• Investment process start date: Q4 2011.
• Experienced Israeli-Polish team,
• Access to a global network of partners and investors,
• Operating model based on Giza VC 20 years of experience.

The Fund is directed to advanced private, strategic and financial investors interested in Central European investments.

GPV inwestycje:

Audioteka

Vivid Games

GPV investments:

• Audioteka
• Vivid Games
• Incuvo
• Loterity

About us

Giza Polish Ventures I Fund (GPV) is a Venture Capital fund with a professional back-up provided by the Israeli company Giza Venture Capital. The company was established in 1992 and currently manages funds worth over USD 600 million. Over the past 20 years on the market, Giza VC has made almost 100 investments in Israel, Europe, the United States and Asia and has achieved more than 35 successful exits. Giza Investment professionals contribute with wealth of expertise and experience in communications, semiconductors, information technologies, enterprise software, the life sciences and medical equipment, clean technologies, media, the Internet and entertainment. Thanks to its experienced team, Giza has become one of the leading Israeli VC groups and has led to the following winning investments: Zoran – digital entertainment (NASDAQ:ZRAN), M-Systems (currently Sandisk), Libit (currently TI), Actimize (acquired by Nice), Danen Technology (TWSE: 3686.TW) and others. Moreover, Giza VC established an office in Singapore in 2001 and in recent years has been pursuing investment opportunities in Taiwan-based companies. Giza VC is also actively engaged in supporting the Israeli company portfolio in developing and partnering in Taiwan and South-East Asia.
GPV Fund mainly invests in early stage companies and technology start-ups in Poland. The aim of the Fund is to use the broad investment experience and international network of business contacts of the Giza VC company as well as expert knowledge of the Polish team on identifying local companies and teams with extraordinary international development potential.
Giza Polish Ventures actively participates in development of innovativeness in Poland by taking part in numerous conferences and seminars as well as by close cooperation with public institutions responsible for that issues. This includes among others cooperation with Ministry of Science and Higher Education and with National Centre for Research and Development what has already resulted in preparation of Report on innovativeness developmen barroers in Poland (Polish only) by Zygmunt Grajkowski. The report has beenoficially presented during the Round Table of Innovativeness event in February 2013.

Team

Investment committee

The Fund is managed by a Polish-Israeli team of experienced investment managers. The long-standing experience of the Israeli team on the global markets combined with the in-depth knowledge of the Polish team in the Polish market creates a unique set of competences which guarantees good performance of the fund.

Zeev Holtzman – Chairman of the Investment Committee
Founder and Chairman of the Giza Venture Capital Fund, 30 years of experience in VC and investment banking. Chairman of Giza Polish Ventures and Chairman of the Investment Committee. He founded the Giza Group in 1985 and Giza Venture Capital in 1992. Apart from investing, he was also a representative of Credit Suisse First Boston and Alex Brown in Israel and held top positions in the largest Israeli financial institutions and in Technion (Israel Institute of Technology). Zeev holds an MBA from Columbia University and a BA in economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Zygmunt Grajkowski – Managing Partner
25 years of experience in corporate finance and new technology investments. In 1996-2002 he was a Partner in Enterprise Investors – a company managing the largest VC/PE funds in Central Europe. Previously, he was a director of the M&A department in Price Waterhouse Poland. Since 2003 as part of his company Value Based Management Consulting he has completed a few dozen of capital and strategic consulting transactions in Poland and Central Europe. Zygmunt graduated from the Faculty of Electronics at Wrocław University of Technology and holds a postgraduate diploma in Capital Investments and Financial Management from the Wrocław University of Economics.

Marek Borzestowski - Partner
Entrepreneur, founder of Internet companies. Over 15 years of experience as a co-owner and board member ofvWirtualna Polska, InteliWISE, Gruper.pl, and Mind The Kids. Founder of the first Polish Think Tank, The Sobieski Institute. He will lead the Horizon project which is focused on the Internet, new media and software. Graduate of Gdańsk University of Technology, Marek also studied at the Swansea University (UK). He conducted research at Kernforschungszentrum in Karlsruhe, Germany.


Shmuel Chafets – Managing Director / Business Development
Over 5 years of experience in business development and creating enterprise strategies. Previously a VP in EBP, a Polish-based holding company focusing on infrastructure and alternative energy and in GCS, a leading Israeli consultancy dealing with Central Europe. Shmuel Chafets has also served in several positions in Israeli government and parliament.



Yuval Avni – Venture Partner
Dr Yuval Avni is a trained medical doctor and holds a Bachelor’s degree (with honors) from the Technion (Israeli Technology Institute) in medical science. For many years he worked as a general and vascular surgeon in the Carmel Medical Centre in Israel. He conducted broad clinical and academic research in the areas of human genetics, general surgery and vascular surgery. He is currently the VP in Giza Venture Capital. As a practitioner with long-standing experience in medical technologies, in Giza Polish Ventures Yuval will deal with analysis of investment projects in the fields of biotechnology and new medical equipment.

Wojciech Olszenka – Investing Manager
Wojciech has 10 years of experience in strategic consulting, mergers and acquisitions, particularly in the new technology area. He specializes in business analyses of technological companies, including identification of key intellectual assets. Wojciech has performed a few dozen of due diligence analyses and has actively participated in the creation of long-term development strategies of several dozen companies, also including the innovative ones. In Giza Polish Ventures Wojciech is responsible for the analysis of investment projects and subsequent support in the management process of portfolio companies. He is a graduate of University of Economics in Katowice and holds a postgraduate diploma in IT studies from the Silesian University.

Marcin Zając - Financial Controller
Over 10 years of experience in creation of financial models reflecting company operations, including large international stock-listed companies, as well as small innovative start-ups. Marcin prepared evaluation models of several dozen companies. In Giza Polish Ventures he is responsible for preparing financial models of the analyzed innovative companies and constructing on their basis evaluation instrument with the use of methodologies relevant to knowledge-based companies, that is evaluation of the intellectual assets enriching traditional methods like EVA, DCF or APV. He graduated from Private School of Business and Administration and holds a postgraduate diploma in Managing the Value of Company at Warsaw School of Economics.


Ewa Abel - Analyst
Analyst in Giza Polish Ventures. Ewa holds a BS in Business and International Finance of Oxford Brookes in Great Britain as well as a MS in Finance from EDHEC Business School in France. She worked as an analyst in the sales department of investment banking in Diamond Capital in Nigeria. In Giza Polish Ventures Ewa will deal with the analysis of investment projects.

Portfolio

Giza VC sponsors Giza Polish Ventures. Giza, established in 1992, is one of the oldest VC funds in Israel.
Giza has set up 5 funds with assets of over USD 600 million. Two first funds were closed with the result of 36% and 114% gross IRR. Investment areas include telecommunications, electron technology, software, media, medical technologies and environment protection technologies.
Giza invests in seed and early stage enterprises. Long-standing presence of Giza VC on the market has resulted in a broad network of international business contacts in the USA, European Union and the Far East.
So far Giza has invested in 95 companies and has sold 32 companies to industry investors, such as Microsoft, Intel, Texas Instruments or has made an exit from the investment by introducing them to NASDAQ, Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Swiss Exchange.
The portfolio below includes the list of companies in which GIZA VC has invested.

• Semiconductors
  • Butterfly
  • Envara
  • Libit
  • Oplus
  • Altair
  • CellGuide
  • Lucid
• Telecommunications
  • Telegate
  • Xtend
  • Flash
  • Surf
  • Xeround
• IT
  • Actimize
  • Cyota
  • MoreCom
  • Precise
  • ProSight
  • YaData
  • Continuity
  • E-Glue
  • FIS
  • Odysii
  • Viewfinity
  • ActionBase
  • Soluto
  • XtremIO
  • TaKaDu
• Internet and media
  • Cellectivity
  • Koolanoo
  • SemantiNet
  • Stanza
  • IMScouting
  • Winbuyer
  • Audioteka
  • Vivid Games
  • Incuvo
• Biotechnologies
  • Compugen
  • Impella
  • Oridion
  • X Technologies
  • IceCure Medical
  • BioLineRx
  • CanFite
  • CircuLite
  • IntelliDx
  • Mitralign
  • Pathway
  • Proneuron
  • Proteologics
  • UltraSPECT
  • Navotek

Investment criteria

Region:	Poland
Areas:	IT Telecommunications New Media Internet E-commerce Cleantech Mobile technologies Nanotechnologies Medical equipment Biotechnology
Stage:	Seed, development or expansion stage
Product/service features:	uniqueness and innovativeness scalability international growth potential experienced team with strong leadership in technology and management clear market demand for the product/service
Investment amount:	Preferred amount of the investment is PLZ 1 to 6 million.
Shares:	The Fund prefers to acquire minority stakes, however in special cases it can also acquire majority stakes.
Syndication:	The Fund frequently looks for partners in co-investing such as strategic investors, enterprise incubators, VC funds and Business Angels.
Membership in the Supervisory Board:	GPV ultimately takes one or two places in the Supervisory Board thus providing support and consulting services to portfolio companies.
Investment period:	GPV invests in portfolio companies for a period of 3 - 5 years.
Exit:	The investment exits preferred by the fund are: a sellout to a strategic or financial investor and a sellout of the shares at a stock exchange.