Square Peg closes $550m funds, 33% for Israel investment

Australian venture capital fund Square Peg Capital has announced the closure of its fifth generation of funds totaling $550 million, mainly for investment in seed and Series A and B investments in in SaaS, Future of Work, edtech, fintech, consumer internet, and healthtech. The fund will invest sums of between $1 million and $30 million in about 20 companies and one third of the fund will be invested in Israeli startups. Square Peg Capital has also closed its Opportunity Fund, which will invest larger amounts in growth rounds.

Square Peg Capital is active in Australia, southeast Asia and Israel and has more than $3 billion under management and has invested in 70 companies. The venture capital firm’s portfolio includes many of the world’s most prominent unicorns including Canva and Stripe and other successful investments include Fiverr, Aiwallex and FinAccel.

Square Peg Capital’s investment in Israel are managed by two of the firm’s partners – Philippe Schwartz and Yonatan Sela, who are both former entrepreneurs with rich operative experience. To date Square Peg Capital has invested more than $250 million in Israeli startups including Sternum, Tomorrow.io, Fiverr, Aidoc, Voyantis, Exodigo, Deco, Retrain and other companies who have yet to announce the investment.

Sela said, “An entire generation of large and influential companies has been created here in Israel and it has been a great privilege to be an active partner supporting their creation. The depth and diversity of the entrepreneurial world in the country is rare, and much of the new fund we have raised will be invested here – Israel is an important center of activity for Square Peg. The fact that we are working in a range of geographies allows us to delve deeply into our areas of expertise and choose the teams in which we invest out of their global pull and provide them support in a range of markets.”

Due to successful returns on its investments from previous funds, Square Peg Capital has already returned $600 million to investors so far, which has allowed it to raise its latest funds despite the bear market from new and previous investors including large institutional investors and family offices.

Founding partner Paul Bassat said, “Over the past decade, we have built a strong record and the backing of the best funders in Australia, southeast Asia and Israel. Most of the world’s biggest problems are solved by tech startups and a large part of these came from startups in the geographical regions in which we focus.”

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on October 26, 2022.

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