Chemi Peres

In early 2020 Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation announced Peres the recipient of the Reinhard Mohn Prize.

Today Peres serves on the board of directors of Pitango portfolio companies, such as Via Transportation, Taboola, Venn.city, Radwin, Duda and totango. He is also on the board of Teva Pharmaceuticals (since July 2017), idomoo, and he serves as Chairman of Webbing.

In 2009, Dun & Bradstreet rated Pitango the largest venture capital fund in Israel, with $2 billion of managed capital.

Peres is a member of the ORT Israel Friends Association, which promotes science and technology education in Israel. He is a member of the Executive Committee of Friends of IDC. He served as chairman of the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce from 2008–2011. Peres co-founded Israel Venture Association (IVA, now known as IATI), and served as chairman from 2002 to 2004. In that capacity, he fought the Prime Minister's Office intention to significantly cut the budget for the High-tech sector.

Peres also holds shares in iDigital, the local representative of Apple since 2007.

Over the years, Peres served as a board member in many companies among them are: Aladdin Knowledge Systems, AudioCodes, BackWeb, Koor Industries, Magic Software Enterprises, Orckit Communications, Precise Software, VocalTec, and others. In 2007 Peres co-founded "Pearls of Wisdom", a wireless sensors' network provider, where he still serves as Chairman of the board of directors. The Company is a subsidiary of Elbit Systems.

As a reserve duty Cobra pilot, Peres fought in Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996.

In 1996 Peres left MOFET, and along with Rami Kalish, they co-founded Polaris Fund II, in partnership with the Dovrat-Shrem Group. The fund raised $125 million, and by 2000 had already covered the investment and generated a profit of $200 million.

The success of "Polaris II" led to the founding of a follow-up fund, Pitango Fund III, with $500 million in committed capital, and made Peres one of the most prominent venture capitalists in Israel. Since 1996, he is the Co-Founder and Managing General Partner of the firm, which invested in a portfolio of some 230 global High tech companies, with over $2.3 billion in committed capital.

Peres serves as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, established in 1996 by his late father, Israel's 8th Prime Minister and 9th President of Israel, Shimon Peres. He is also Chairman of Peres & Associates Global Advisory. He is active as a board member at Social Finance Israel (SFI), and serves on the Geox Ethics & Sustainability Committee since March 2020.

MOFET invested in several High-tech companies, among them are Netro Corporation, Precise Software, Paradigm Geophysical and Orckit Communications (later named Orckit-Corrigent), all of them went public on Nasdaq. In addition, other companies in MOFET portfolio were acquired by multinational corporations, among them are: Nicecom (sold in 1994 to 3Com for $58 million, one of the first in a wave of Israeli High-tech sales); "Shani Computers", sold to Intel Corporation in 1994; and Scorpio, sold to USRobotics in August 1996, for $72 million.

In 1992, together with DSIT and others, Peres co-founded "MOFET Israel Technology Fund" (MOFET being Hebrew acronym for "Industrial R&D"), one of the first venture capital funds listed on Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, operating according to the guidelines for early sage investments, issued by Inbal, the Israel Government Insurance firm. The fund initially raised $6 million on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in 1993. Later on, the Fund grew in size, as outstnading warrants and convertible debentures were exercised. In August 1993, the fund invested (with others) $1.5 million in VocalTec, the world's first company to transmit Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Peres served as CEO of MOFET until 1996.

In 1986 Peres Joined Israel Aerospace Industries as an adviser, working on the IAI Lavi project, in the engineering division preliminary design, using his background as an Air Force pilot and a technologist. In 1988 Peres joined Decision Systems Israel (DSI, now known as DSIT), a High tech company engaged in military and civilian software and systems development, and was responsible for new Business Development.

In 1976 Peres graduated from ORT Technicum high school in Givatayim. He enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces, and started the flight course at the Israeli Air Force Flight Academy. His participation was suspended due to Asthma, his Medical profile was reduced to 45, which meant that he could not serve in a combat duty. Insistently, Peres managed to up his profile, and joined the Armored Corps. After completing the basic and advanced training as a tank crew member, he transferred back to the Flight Academy. After finishing the basic flight course, Peres considered to discontinue the flight course. After six months as an NCO, he returned and concluded his training and became a helicopter pilot. Later on, during his tenure at the IAF, he served as Bell AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter pilot.

Nechemia ("Chemi") Jacob Peres Hebrew: חמי פרס ‎ (born July 17, 1958) is a Venture Capital and High-tech entrepreneur. He is Co-founder and Managing General Partner of Pitango Venture Capital.

Born July 1958 in Tel Aviv, Chemi Peres is the youngest son of Sonia and Shimon Peres, a brother to Tsvia Walden ("Tziki") and Yoni Peres. He is named after Nechemia Argov, the Military Secretary to the Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and a friend of his father. The family lived in a modest flat in the old Northern part of Tel-Aviv. Many of Peres' classmates were children of major figures of the Israeli society, including his father, who was already the Minister of Defense.