China's Alibaba invests in funds of Israeli venture capital firm
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group is investing in the funds of Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), one of Israel's leading venture capital groups.
JVP managing partner Kobi Rozengarten announced the investment on Monday during the firm's annual meeting, without giving details.
The Calcalist financial newspaper said on its website the investment amounted to tens of millions of dollars.
JVP has nearly $1 billion (670.4 million pounds) under management.
Calcalist said the investment was Alibaba's first in a venture capital fund.
A delegation of around 20 officials from Alibaba is in Israel this week to meet with JVP and attend a conference on cybersecurity technology.
In January, Alibaba invested in Visualead, its first investment in an Israeli company. The start-up specialises in barcode technology that can be scanned by mobile phones.
JVP, which is managed by Rozengarten, Gadi Tirosh and Raffi Kesten, has realised several successful investments in cybersecurity, including the initial public offering on Nasdaq last year of CyberArk Software.
This month, online payments company PayPal, a unit of eBay, bought cybersecurity start-up CyActive, in which JVP invested.
JVP also backed CyOptics, which was sold to U.S. semiconductor maker Avago for $400 million, and flash storage firm XtremIO, which was acquired by EMC for $430 million.
(Reporting by Tova Cohen; Editing by Mark Potter)
