Personal History
Joshua Levinberg is a household name on the Israeli investment landscape. Widely recognized by the high-tech community as an accomplished entrepreneur and businessman, Levinberg has been at the top of his game since he began his career in the mid 1980s.
Born in Israel in 1953, Levinberg attended high school in Ramat Gan at the “Ohel Shem” school. “Ohel Shem” has a tradition of educating some of Israel’s brightest and most innovative entrepreneurs and Levinberg was no exception. Joshua went on to continue studying at Tel-Aviv University, where he obtained his B.SC in electrical engineering and electronics.
Early Business Beginnings
In 1987, Joshua Levinberg co-founded Gilat Satellite Neworks Ltd. The company provides satellite based communication networks and leads the market, with a six-continent span in more than 85 countries. Terminal products supplied by Gilat include the company’s originally designed very small aperture terminals, or VSATs, disperse Internet, voice, video, data, and broadband by satellite. Shares of Gilat have been publicly traded as NASDAQ:GILT since 1993.
Joshua was also part of successful companies such as Spacenet Inc., a Gilat subsidiary, Satlynx S.A, which was acquired by GE, DSP Group, and Global Village Telecom (GVT), which sold to Vivendi for over $4 Billion. He currently serves as senior advisor for business development and corporate strategy at Gilat Inc., but has simultaneously moved on to new endeavors in order to further manifest his entrepreneurial savvy.
Current Success with JAL Ventures
Levinberg is not only a high-achieving entrepreneur, but also an extremely adept investor. In 2003, Levinberg co-founded the JAL Ventures LTD investment company with his brother, Amiram Levinberg. The company allows Joshua and his partner to back successful and cutting edge companies through sound investments.
Through JAL Ventures, Levinburg has been able to invest in ERAYO.com, Capital Point, C.I Industries, DenTack, Xsight Systems, GoNetworks, and Kasamba, which is now known as LivePerson.
Joshua was one of the lead investors at Kasamba, which provided online advice in a virtual marketplace, and later became a board member. Eventually there were more than 30,000 online experts providing advice on this platform. LivePerson (NASDQ – LPSN) bought out Kasamba in 2007 for approximately $40M. The merger allowed the companies to work together towards the goal of providing trustworthy advice with a united expert team.
After his success with Kasamba, Joshua co-founded Agropeace Bio LTD, which is an Israeli firm that develops large-scale bio-diesel projects on the African continent. Agropeace Bio specializes in investing in African castor fields where the castor seeds are separated and the oil is extracted from these seeds for the bio-diesel industry and other commercial uses. Now Joshua is a board member of Agropeace Bio and actively invests in the company through JAL Ventures.
Because JAL Ventures allows for diversified investments, Levinberg is able to manage a very unique portfolio. He sits as chairman of Vanadium Software LTD, which was founded in 2004 and patented “Virtual Auditor” technology. The technology is implemented to check compliance records of and regulations in IT enterprise technology. He is also a board member of Matan Digital Printers which Joshua also invests in via JAL Ventures.
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