From AI To Foodtech, OurCrowd Brings More Opportunities To Investors With Three New Funds

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By Meg Flippin, Benzinga

When it comes to transformative, revolutionary technology, AI is high on the list. After all, it impacts everything from how we craft research papers and emails to what we eat. It is also driving unprecedented deal-making with investment dollars pouring into AI and generative AI at a fast clip, with those investments also naturally spilling over into other impacted sectors like foodtech.

OurCrowd, the leading global digital investment firm, captures all of those opportunities and more with three popular investment funds: The OurCrowd AI Fund, The OurCrowd FoodTech Fund and OC50 VIII. Through these funds, investors get access to the startups OurCrowd is making bets on in fast-growing markets like AI, foodtech and software-as-a-service, to name a few.

Declared Israels most active investor for the past 10 years by PitchBook, OurCrowd has recorded 63 exits from 440 portfolio companies since its inception in 2013 and is invested in 410 additional companies via partner funds. It has more than 230,000 registered investors from 195 countries among its members. Through the OurCrowd platform, accredited investors can participate in a wide range of deals from individual startups to highly diversified funds, private equity, venture debt and other hard-to-access private market opportunities. OurCrowd gives investors access to multiple funds based on sector, stage, geography or investment thesis.

Generative AI Transforming The World

The OurCrowd AI Fund is one example of the types of opportunities OurCrowd offers. The $50 million fund seeks appreciation by investing in 20 to 25 AI startups on the OurCrowd platform using AI, generative AI and machine learning to positively impact multiple industries and sectors. The fund is focused on companies developing generative AI across several sectors, including medtech, mobility, agtech, cybersecurity, foodtech, climatech, legaltech and fintech. The fund will also invest in companies that provide AI solutions to support key business categories across technology sectors, including customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering and R&D. OurCrowd sees a big opportunity for the startups operating in the generative AI space, pointing to ChatGPT to underscore the potential.

Since the release of OpenAIs ChatGPT in November 2022 the interest in artificial intelligence (AI) and particularly in generative AI has surged. The remarkable success of ChatGPT is a testament to the power of product/market fit, OurCrowd wrote in its investment prospectus for the fund. Launched on November 30, 2022, it gained over 1 million users in just 5 days and reached 100M users in just 2 months. This level of mass adoption for a technology product is unprecedented, way outpacing previous tech innovative waves such as the PC (it took Apple 14 years and Microsoft 10 years to attain 100M users), Internet (Amazon 12 years, Facebook 5 years and Google raised the bar to 1 year), Mobile (Instagram 30 months and TikTok 9 months). To learn more about the OurCrowd AI Fund and to invest, click here.

Technology Changing The Way We Eat

Foodtech is another area OurCrowd is bullish about and so it has launched the OurCrowd FoodTech Fund. The fund is raising $30 million to invest in 15 to 20 food technology companies offered on the OurCrowd platform. OurCrowd says the foodtech market is booming, with a few areas of the market dominating, including bioengineering alternative proteins, supply-chain optimization, AI-driven smart home cooking products and delivery apps.

The OurCrowd FoodTech Fund invests in a wide range of technology companies seeking to tackle the challenge of feeding the worlds fast-growing population while decarbonizing the global economy. Companies in the fund will also address new trends in culinary preferences, as well as lifestyle pressures and sustainability demands among Millennials and Generation Z.

OurCrowd knows a thing or two about foodtech, which is what it says makes its fund attractive to accredited investors. The VC firm has invested more than $102 million across 20 foodtech companies worldwide, including Beyond Meat Inc. (NASDAQ: BYND), which had a successful IPO in 2019. Of its investments, nine are in Israel, which is a global leader in the number of alternative protein startups and amount invested, second only to the U.S. OurCrowd says its well positioned to leverage Israels cutting-edge leadership in the space via its network of entrepreneurs, scientists, third-party funds and dedicated in-house food and agtech incubators in Israel and New Zealand. Moreover, since 2021, OurCrowd has been among the ten most active VCs globally in foodtech, according to PitchBook data. To learn more about the OC FoodTech fund and how to invest click here.

VC Access Through OurCrowds OC50 VIII Fund

With so many startups in AI, foodtech and other areas of technology, it's not surprising that a lot of deal-making is going on. OurCrowd is giving investors access to that via its hyperdiversified OC50 VIII fund. Through the fund, investors get unprecedented broad exposure to the venture capital asset class across technology sectors where OurCrowd professionals have developed particular expertise, geographies where OurCrowd has developed networks of investors and global partners and across all development stages of startup companies from early-stage to pre-IPO. The investments cover several areas of tech including software-as-a-service (SaaS), fintech, medtech and digital health, mobility, cybersecurity and consumer and enterprise hardware.

OurCrowd is leveling the playing field with the fund, giving investors access to venture deals long reserved only for institutional investors and elite VCs offering instant diversification, rapid deployment of funds, earlier distributions and preferential access to the OurCrowd platforms top deals. To invest in the OC50 VIII fund and learn more about its strategy click here.

Beyond AI And Tech

OurCrowd isnt only focusing on AI and food tech, it's also adapting to geopolitical unrest, recently launching the $50 million Israel Resilience Fund. The fund is focused on startups that are directly affected by the Israeli/Hamas conflict or are developing solutions to address the environmental impact, emergency medicine, food security, cybersecurity, media monitoring, reconstruction and other verticals. That fund closed its first round 40 days after announcing, with $13 million in capital commitments. It's one of the fastest-closing venture funds to go from conception to closure and eight actual investments, according to OurCrowd. The fund plans to invest in about 40 companies and has so far helped to unlock more than $100 million in matching funds from other investors and government bodies. For an opportunity to get in early on the Israeli companies making a difference despite the Israeli/Hamas conflict click here.

Change is happening at a dizzying pace driven by AI, generative AI and machine learning. Through these funds from OurCrowd, investors get early access to up-and-coming startups that have the potential to be the leaders of tomorrow.

Click here to begin investing with OurCrowd.

Featured photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash.

OurCrowd was started in 2013, driven by the idea that the business of building startups grows bigger and better when the global crowd gains access to VC-level investment opportunities.Today, OurCrowd is a global venture and alternative investing platform that empowers institutions and individuals to invest and engage in emerging companies. OurCrowd vets and selects companies, invests its capital, and provides its global network with unparalleled access to co-invest and contribute connections, talent and deal flow. OurCrowd builds value for its portfolio companies throughout their lifecycles, providing mentorship, recruiting industry advisors, navigating follow-on rounds and creating growth opportunities through its network of multinational partnerships.

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