Israel’s high-tech ecosystem is back in gear and robust enough to overcome the global and internal challenges it has been facing over the past two years, venture capitalist and high-tech entrepreneur Chemi Peres told Al-Monitor.
“Israel’s economy will grow in 2024, but obviously at a slower rate compared with 2022, when economic growth reached 6.5%. In 2023, growth went down to 2.5%, mostly due to the weaker results registered in the last quarter of the year, following Oct. 7,” said Peres. He believes that high tech will remain the main engine driving Israel’s economy forward.
Over the past three decades, Peres has been involved with several Israeli venture capital funds that invested in local high-tech and startup companies. In 1992, he co-founded the MOFET fund, one of the first capital venture funds to list on the Tel Aviv stock exchange, followed in 1993 by the Pitango Fund, which is currently Israel's largest venture capital fund, with over $2.8 billion under management.
Chemi is the youngest son of Israel's late president, Nobel Prize laureate Shimon Peres, known not only as one of the architects of the Oslo Accords, but also for his vision of Israel as a startup nation. Following in his father’s footsteps, Chemi Peres serves as the chairman of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation.
