Portfolio News

ISRAEL – May 1, 2007 - Oree, an Israeli start-up which is developing an innovative optical packaging solution for the Light Emitting Diode (LED) industry, today announced the completion of a $7M series A round of equity financing. Genesis Partners and GIMV, a leading Belgian investment company that manages assets of approximately EUR 1.5 billion, participated in the round. Previously, Genesis Partners participated along with private investors in an early seed financing round of approximately 800K. Additionally, Oree announced that Yair Shoham, partner at Genesis Partners, Alex Brabers, partner at GIMV, and Eyal Harel, formerly the Co-President of Orbotech, have joined the company’s Board of Directors.

Oree’s advanced lighting technology enables the production of more efficient and more flexible LED-based lighting systems for LCD screens. In addition, the company's technology significantly reduces the production costs of LED-based LCD screens, which are less common today due to their high pricing. The company's technology can also be utilized for general illumination in the automotive, home appliance, laptop, and home decorating markets.

Oree was co-founded by CEO Eran Fine and Noam Meir. Fine was previously the Founder and CEO of Mobile Spear, a software company that is active in Singapore, Spain, and France, and in which Star Ventures, Acceed, Exem Technologies and Microdent invested. Fine also founded LetMeKnow Technology which developed alert systems for mobile phones and was acquired by The Formula Group. Formerly, Fine wrote the content for and edited several successful Israeli TV shows. Meir is a veteran physician and an expert in the field of optics. He was formerly a senior network engineer at Elbit Systems and at Electro-Optics (ELOP).

Yair Shoham, Partner at Genesis Partners, stated, “Oree’s unique innovation is an excellent example of thinking outside the box. We believe in the company's creative approach and in its team of professionals. We are delighted to show our support by leading this investment round."

"The vision that stands at the foundation of Oree is to change the world of lighting," says Eran Fine, CEO of Oree. "We are excited by Genesis Partners’ continuing support and by GIMV’s decision to join this investment. We believe in the strength of this partnership and its ability to be of vast assistance as we move forward in build a leading company."

About Genesis Partners
Genesis Partners is a leading Israeli venture capital firm focused on early stage companies in the information and communication technology (ICT) sectors. Established in 1996, Genesis Partners manages over $500 million in capital commitments across three funds, and has made over 70 investments with 25 successful exits. Genesis Partners has strong ties to the Israeli entrepreneurial community and the global technology industry, and a strong team of venture professionals with extensive experience in venture capital, technology, operations and entrepreneurship. For more information, please visit www.genesispartners.com.

About GIMV
Since its incorporation in 1980 GIMV has grown into Belgium's most important venture capital provider and company-builder. GIMV has now become a major European and international market player. Both in Belgium and abroad, GIMV invests in information and communication technology, life sciences as well as in growth financing and management buy-outs (MBOs) of companies in more traditional sectors. GIMV currently manages around EUR 1.5 billion of assets (including third party funds). GIMV has been listed on Euronext Brussels since 1997. In the last twelve months, GIMV's ICT team invested in Human Inference (NL), Aventiv (BE), Liquavista (NL), Virtensys (GB), CoreOptics (DE), Clear2Pay (BE) and Xanadu Wireless (NL). For more information on GIMV, please visit www.gimv.com.