Oshri Kaplan, director, Munich Re Ventures
1. First, just give us a quick overview of who you work for, what you do, and how long you’ve been doing it.
I am an investment director at Munich Re Ventures (MRV), the global corporate venture capital (CVC) arm of [Germany-headquartered reinsurance group] Munich Re, who is looking to invest in the future of risk transfer solutions, technologies and businesses.
I have more than 14 years of global venture experience, investing in early and mid-stage companies in the US, Europe, Israel and Asia. I joined MRV in 2018, and I currently sit on the boards of At-Bay, Hippo Insurance, Acko, Inshur, Sepio and DayForward.
Prior to my current role with MRV, I was a venture partner at Silicon Foundry, a corporate innovation and venture platform that connect select corporations with top startups and emerging technologies for potential investments, acquisitions and partnerships.
Prior to Silicon Foundry, I was the managing director of Flex Venture Programs, the CVC arm of [supply chain services provider] Flex (formerly Flextronics), focusing on IoT and enabling technologies investment opportunities.
Prior to Flex, I led the ventures and innovation activities at Deloitte in Israel, focusing on SaaS and Big-Data applications, developing close ties to the Israeli VC and startup community.
I started my VC career on the institutional side of venture capital, in a mid-size venture capital firm from Israel – Docor International Management, founded by the Van Leer group foundation to invest in Israeli entrepreneurs.
2. What attracted you to CVC?
At the beginning of my career, I had a chance to learn the 101 venture basics at an institutional VC fund. I worked with early-stage entrepreneurs and with the broader startup community in Israel.
At that time, I got the first glimpse of other corporates investing in my portfolio companies. After leaving this fund, I wanted to get a feel of what it was like to work for a big corporate, learning some of their big picture strategies, while keeping the connection to the startup community, and to the core function of investments for financial returns and more.
That is how I found myself working for Deloitte, and to this day, CVC in my mind is a unique combination of startup activities, strategy and planning, and investments.
3. What have been your greatest successes at your unit?
Our fund had great success in 2019, with two exits from our first fund, vintage of 2015/6. Personally, I haven’t had exits yet with my current portfolio companies, but most of my companies had significant growth in their value since our first investment, and I am confident about their exit potential in the near to mid-term. Our ability to contribute to their success so far and onwards, financially, operationally, and strategically, is my greatest achievement as member of our CVC team.
On the investments side, I’d like to highlight one company where I led their investment round in 2020 – Acko.
Acko is not only one of the first digital-only insurance carrier of India, but also our first fund investment in India and Asia. The Indian market is going digital across the board. We see this trend in mobile and internet users, financial services and gig-economy workers, and now also with insurance. Acko is one of the few digital insurance players that are leading the insuretech revolution in India. Following Acko for a couple of years, and now also an investor, I am excited about Acko’s potential and am proud to support them moving forward in their journey to become one of India’s digital leaders.
4. What have been your biggest challenges?
2020 was a challenging year for all of us. It changed all the basic fundamentals of work, life, and definitely the balance between them, all while keeping health as a top priority. It required us to change the way we interact within our team, our parent company, our portfolio companies, and the broader startup community. My CVC fellows would probably agree with me that executing investments in the CVC world, requires more time and more interactions within the organization than the typical institutional VC investment process. Making an investment during Covid added another layer of challenge in such interactions. As one of the leaders in our group, I am really proud of our team and the way we managed to execute multiple deals in 2020, despite the challenges we all faced.
5. What is your main professional ambition for the future?
I usually don’t like to look too far into the future when it comes to planning. I’d like to continue and position MRV as the best investor and partner for entrepreneurs in our areas of interest as well as to expand our reach to all regions and continue to expand the Munich Re brand.
6. What do you think all CVCs could do better to make it a stronger industry?
“Not your parents CVC.” CVC has grown to become an important piece in the venture industry. That being said, the CVC industry is still fighting perceptions of a CVC by some entrepreneurs who see CVCs as a partner only in the late stage, only in “good” times, and with a limited strategic angle. Some of that same wisdom also expected CVC arms to retreat and limit their activities during a pandemic.
I think that 2020 showed that CVC activity wasn’t limited and did not decline, in fact, CVC’s participated in more than 25% of all deals, and represented more than 50% of the deal value. Both figures are some of the highest levels ever tracked. All that said, most of the CVCs have increased their support to the startup community in such a difficult and unique time.
As an industry, we need to continue to push the right messaging about our continuous resilience, share our insights with one another on best communication practices and execute our strategies, while continuing to support the startup communities around the world.
7. And, finally, for colour, what did you do prior to CVC (army/university/etc) or in your spare time?
I hold an MBA degree from University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, and a law degree (LLB) as well as a business degree (BA) from the IDC Herzliya in Israel. I started my career as an intelligence analyst and later an officer in the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) in Israel.
Most of my free time is dedicated to my wife and my two kids. We live in the very pastoral Los Gatos, California, and our weekend are filled with nearby hiking and biking activities. This past year, I added another hobby to the equation with the addition of the Peloton Tread. I have always loved running, and it happened to be the best timing to add a new healthy hobby to my daily routine.
