Indian and Israeli relations are getting friendlier every year. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in the year 1992, bilateral trade and economic relations progressed rapidly. According to Israel's Embassy of India website, from US$ 200 million in 1992 (comprising primarily of diamonds), merchandise trade diversified and reached USD 4.16 billion (excluding defence) in 2016. Further, Israel's trade with India constituted 3.3% of its total trade in 2016. And now, in order to better this percentage and the ties between the two countries, Jerusalem-based equity crowdfunding platform, OurCrowd has entered into a strategic collaboration with India’s Reliance Private Client, in which the Indian wealth management firm will be offering its clients the option of investing in the Israeli company’s funds and start-up portfolio.

Account to Elias Ghosalkar, Director of Corporate Development at OurCrowd, though Indian investors have been interested in the Israeli startup scene for quite sometime, they didn't have access to the right connections. With this collaboration, the company hopes to solve this problem.

The agreement between Israel's OurCrowd and India's Reliance Private Client will aim to build the former's presence in the Indian subcontinent. Once this aim is substantially conquered, the equity crowdfunding firm hopes that it will be possible for its portfolio companies to export their products to the Indian market. According to Ghosalkar, there are several more opportunities being explored with India and they are all currently at discussion stage.

According to data made available by OurCrowd, with a with total wealth approaching the $1 trillion mark, the Indian subcontinent is currently the fourth largest population of high net worth investors in the Asia-Pacific region. India is currently home to 2 per cent of the world's millionaires and 5 per cent of world's billionaires. Further, between the years 2015 and 2016, the South Asian country has seen a whopping 12 per cent increase in high net worth investors. This percentage is expected to grow at 150 per cent over the next decade. These statistics paint a rich picture about the investing power that Indians hold.

Speaking to Times Of Israel, Amrita Farmahan, Country Business Head at Reliance Private Client said, "In addition to providing viable investment opportunities in these important alternate assets, we will connect the Indian investors to the global startup ecosystem via OurCrowd." Reliance Private Client is a part of the Reliance Group, a private sector financial services company with over 250 million customers. Interestingly, while one firm of the group is rooting for Israeli startup ecosystem, another firm of the group, Reliance Capital had earlier in the year sold its share in Indian born Paytm to Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and its payments affiliate Ant Financial for a whopping amount of Rs 275 crores (Read Here).

The deal comes on the heals of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's much awaited trip to Israel in July. In the past, the Indian PM and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin have hailed the ties between the two countries and called for increased security cooperation and deeper economic relations.

OurCrowd has locked in a similar deal with the National Australia Bank earlier this week wherein the bank will offer its clients the opportunity to invest via OurCrowd’s platform.
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