Israeli Tech Entrepreneur Willenz Leads Quantum Machines, Inc.’s $17.5 Million Round
(TechCrunch) Quantum Machines, Inc.’s $17.5 Million round was led by Israeli tech entrepreneur Avigdor Willenz (who, among other companies, co-founded Habana Labs and Anapurna Labs and sold them to Intel and Amazon, respectively) and Harel Insurance Investments.
Avigdor Willenz was born in 1957 in Israel. Mr. Wilenz is a serial tech entrepreneur and prolific angel investor. He is currently the Co-founder and chairman of Lightbits Labs, which is developing innovative solutions providing enterprises with significant cloud infrastructure benefits. He is also currently the Co-founder and chairman of Habana Labs, which develops solutions for artificial intelligence and deep-learning computing.
Willenz is responsible for one of the largest exits in Israeli history, having sold his company Galileo Technologies Ltd. in 2001 to Marvell Technology Group Ltd. for $2.7 billion. In 2015, he sold another company he co-founded, Annapurna Labs, to Amazon for $370 million. More recently he founded database technology company Lightbits Labs Ltd. Willenz is also a prolific investor.
“The race to commercial quantum computers is one of the most exciting technological challenges of our generation,” said Willenz. “Our goal at [Quantum Machines] is to make this happen faster than anticipated and establish ourselves as a key player in this emerging industry.”
TLV Partners and Battery Ventures also participated in this round. TLV Partners also led the company’s $5.5 million seed round in 2018, in which Battery Partners also participated.
