Students, professors and alumni of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology now have a new way to finance their cutting-edge projects: a $200 million venture capital fund focused on creating companies out of the research conducted at the Haifa-based university.

The new fund is a joint venture between the Technion Research & Development Foundation (TRDF) and UG Capital Management (UGC), a fund management company based in Hong Kong.

The management team for the joint venture will be based in both Israel and Hong Kong. It includes Jonathan Mitchell, CY Lau and Thomas Lau of UGI, and Eddy Shalev, Dr. Eyal Kishon and Gary Gannot, the founders of the Genesis venture capital fund, who are joining the new Technion group.

“The Technion has been increasing its commercialization activities in recent years and we have already noted many successes in this field, including more than doubling the number of startup companies set up at the Technion through the new Technion DRIVE Accelerator,” said Prof. Wayne D. Kaplan, executive vice president for research and director general of TRDF.

UGI’s Jonathan Mitchell praised the new venture and team as a kind of “alchemy.”

“We’ve combined a number of components – the Israeli mind, institutional and private investors, and of course Technion and the local staff – and with all this we will contribute to the welfare of the world,” said Mitchell.

(via Israel21c)

[Photo: Israel21c ]