OurCrowd, as part of an international consortium, has won a tender to operate a startup incubator in New Zealand. The consortium of companies that participated in the bid includes Finistere Ventures, New Zealand’s food giant Fonterra and animal management leader Gallagher. The consortium was selected by a government entity Callaghan Innovation. The incubator will target Agtech and Foodtech in New Zealand.
This is not the first incubator program OurCrowd has helped to operate. There is the OurCrowd LABS02 deep tech incubator in Jerusalem in collaboration with India’s Reliance and US-based Motorola Solutions and Hebrew University’s Yissum; the LABS08 incubator in Beer Sheva, focused on cybersecurity and digital health in collaboration with Soroka Medical Center and the National Cybersecurity Directorate; and the recently awarded “Fresh Start” Foodtech incubator in northern Israel with Finistere and Israeli food industry leaders Tnuva and Tempo.
OurCrowd CEO and founder Jon Medved said they were very excited to participate in their first global incubator outside Israel:
“This will hopefully be the first of many international incubators with which we will partner around the world. This is our second incubator in the food and Agtech arena, and there is no better place to do this than the incredible innovative environment of New Zealand.”
Finistere founder and partner Arama Kukutai, a native New Zealander, said that over the last five years they have seen “unprecedented capital flow into start-ups in the agrifood space.”
“We believe there is [a] huge opportunity for Sprout to help position early start-ups to go global with the support of this syndicate and the bold investment by Callaghan,” said Kukatai. “Jon and the OurCrowd team bring a depth of expertise and significant relationships to help the companies we invest in grow.”
OurCrowd has received over $1.3 billion of committed funding, and investments in 200 portfolio companies and 18 venture funds. Individual accredited investors may participate in listed offerings alongside institutional money at the same terms.