PICO Venture Partners, a Jerusalem-based, early-stage venture capital firm, has closed its second fund with USD80 million in capital commitments. PICO now manages USD130 million across two funds.
Founded in 2015, the firm invests in early-stage startups seeking to upend broken business models in sizeable industries. Rather than focusing on specific sectors, it looks for values-based, execution-driven Israeli entrepreneurs who leverage technology to modernise processes and unlock greater efficiency in the marketplace. The firm believes that this sector-agnostic, business-centric approach is the key to successfully identifying and investing in startups with the greatest potential for growth.
PICO has invested in 15 portfolio companies to date including Vroom, the online platform for buying and selling refurbished, pre-owned cars. Recognising the massive opportunity to transform the highly fragmented used car market, PICO led Vroom’s initial investment round and has continued to support the company in follow-on rounds.
PICO also led the initial investment round in Spotinst, the cloud automation and optimization startup that has reached more than 1,500 enterprise customers across 52 countries in just three years.
The young firm has other notable, fast-growing investments including Gloat, an AI-powered internal talent marketplace, and ChargeAfter, a multi-lender point-of-sale financing platform – both working with Fortune 500 customers.
More recently, PICO invested in Tastewise, an AI-powered food trends prediction and intelligence startup, and Ravin.AI, which combines computer vision and deep learning to detect and analyze vehicle damage via standard cameras.
The firm – with offices in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and New York – was co-founded by partners Elie Wurtman, Todd Kesselman and Gina LaVersa. Wurtman is a serial entrepreneur, venture investor and technology executive who served as General Partner at Benchmark Capital Israel for six years and, before that, spent three years at Jerusalem Venture Partners as CEO of JVP Studio.
Kesselman and LaVersa worked together as investment bankers in New York before founding an investment firm with USD2.5 billion of ultra-high-net-worth capital and relationships with leading private equity and venture funds. Kesselman, based in Tel Aviv, works on the PICO investment team and with LaVersa (based in New York), oversees fundraising and leveraging their US network to provide strategic value and new business opportunities for the portfolio. PICO is backed by family offices, ultra-high-net-worth individuals and select corporate investors from the US, Europe and Australia.
