Asset services provider Apex Group said it has been appointed by Israel-based OurCrowd, a global venture capital investment platform, to provide fund services and to help attract investors in Australia and New Zealand. Formed in 2013, OurCrowd is Israel’s most active venture capital firm, having deployed over 1.8 billion dollars in committed capital to date.
Apex, active in the Luxembourg fund services ecosystem also with FundRock and LRI Invest, will provide fund administration, transfer agency and custodian services services to the recently launched OurCrowd 50 fund, known as OC50. This fund is a diversified investment vehicle giving investors exposure to global venture backed assets across a mix of sectors, geographies and from early stage through to later stage.
“We are delighted to be working with a fund of OurCrowd’s pedigree and outstanding performance record,” Nick Bradford, Head of Business Development, Oceania, at Apex Group, said in a press release. “As we see alternative assets continuing to attract investment from wholesale and (high net worth)investors, our clients need administrators with the experience and technology to meet the varying reporting requirements of a larger number of investors.”
“We are pleased to appoint Apex as fund administrators for OC50, having been impressed by the depth of their experience supporting VC and private equity funds across various regulatory frameworks and fund structures,” said Dan Bennett, Managing Partner at OurCrowd Australia & Asia. ”We are targeting Australian investors for this fund, and Apex will play an important role in supporting our relationships with them, by enabling timely and accurate reporting.”
Expansion in Oceania and APAC regions
The appointment of Apex as fund service provider to OurCrowd follows wins for Apex in the Oceania and APAC regions, including Perennial Partners and New Forests, following the successful acquisitions of Australia-based Mainstream Group, and New-Zealand-based MMC. Fund services have become an integral part of Apex’s business model, which, according to a recent impact report by Forrester Consulting, provides clients of Apex Group with a return on investment of 105 percent and cost benefits of 5.4 million dollars, with a net present value of 2.75 million over a three-year period, the company said.
OurCrowd, founded by Jerusalem-based entrepreneur Jon Medved (pictured) in 2013, is an online global venture investing platform that empowers institutions and individual accredited investors to invest and engage in emerging technology companies before they go public. Described by Pitchbook as the most active venture investor in Israel, OurCrowd vets and selects companies across all sectors and stages, invests its own capital, and provides its global platform of over 200,000 registered members from 195 countries who can co-invest from as little as 10,000 dollars in companies and funds of their choice.
Democratising venture capital
Founded by CEO Jon Medved in 2013 with the vision of democratising venture capital investing, OurCrowd has grown rapidly into the world’s leading online venture investing platform and as of 2021 has received over 1.8 billion dollars in commitments and has deployed capital into more than 320 portfolio companies and 30 funds across five continents.
To date, OurCrowd’s startups have recorded 50 exits including several stock market listings: Beyond Meat, Lemonade, Innoviz, Hub Security; and numerous high- profile acquisitions: JUMP by Uber, BriefCam by Canon, Argus by Continental, Crosswise by Oracle, Replay by Intel, Corephotonics by Samsung, CyberX by Microsoft, and Kenna Security by Cisco.
Apex, established in Bermuda in 2003, is a global financial services provider with over 50 offices worldwide and 8,000 employees upon the close of announced acquisitions. Its FundRock unit in Luxembourg is the largest third-party management company in the Grand Duchy.
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