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Target Global Acquisition I Corp. (NASDAQ: TGAA) is a newly organized blank check company incorporated as a Cayman Island exempted company and formed for the purpose of effecting a merger, share, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses.
Our sponsor is an affiliate of Target Global (“TG”), a top-tier pan-European venture capital firm headquartered in Berlin, Germany, with over $3 billion in assets under management (as of end of June 2021).
Since its inception in 2012, TG has built up a strong track record and reputation in identifying and nurturing next-generation technology leaders. Our founders’ investments include many European and Israeli unicorns and leading disruptors that were valued at over $1 billion, such as Delivery Hero, Lyft, Auto1, Wefox, Cazoo, Bird, Rapyd and REEF Technology. Focused on trillion-euro offline industries, TG invests in technology-driven companies that have massive disruption potential and an ability to create durable value.
We believe Target Global Acquisition I Corp.’s (“TGAIC”) founders’ extensive experience and strong track record in various executive, operational and investing functions across European (including the U.K.) and Israeli technology ecosystems, combined with their widespread networks strongly positions us as an attractive partner for prospective candidates for our initial business combination.
TGAIC was formed to leverage the extensive experience and track record of our founders with the goal of an initial business combination that can deliver significant returns to our investors. Our founders have extensive investment and operational experience in identifying and accompanying disruptive innovators in our sectors of focus, from an early development stage all the way through to accessing the public markets. Our founders’ industry-specific network of approximately 75 investment and operational experts as well as advisory networks of more than 100 LPs and supporters across various locations in Europe, the U.S., Israel and Asia, give us a strong competitive advantage for sourcing leading business combination candidates within the European and Israeli technology ecosystems.
We provide instrumental support to entrepreneurs in building market leaders, which is why innovators choose to partner with us. Our founders have cultivated meaningful relationships with entrepreneurs across the European and Israeli technology ecosystems by proving to be valuable partners in strategic development, international expansion and public market preparedness. Our vast operational experience as well as our broad entrepreneurial networks demonstrate our ability not only to access and identify business combination candidates that are top of their class but also to drive growth and establish best-in-class public practices and operations.
Chairman and Director
Dr. Cromme currently serves as Chairman of TG and as the Chairman of our Board of Directors. Alongside his office as Chairman of the board at TG, Dr.
Cromme is currently the chairman of the supervisory board of TG portfolio company Auto1 (ETR: AG1), chairman of the advisory board of Aroundtown (ETR: AT1), one of the largest listed commercial real estate companies in Europe as well as a member of the supervisory boards at eClear AG and Highview Enterprises Ltd. Previously,
Dr. Cromme was chairman of the supervisory board of Siemens (ETR: SIE) and co-chairman of the supervisory boards at Thyssen Krupp (ETR: TKA) and ODDO BHF-Group, as well as a member of the supervisory boards of numerous corporates in Germany and France, such as Axel Springer, E.ON. (ETR: EOAN), Ruhrgas, Volkswagen (ETR: VOW3), BNP Paribas (EPA: BNP) and Saint Gobain (LON: COD).
Dr. Cromme holds degrees in law from the University of Münster and the University of Lausanne, and in economics from the University Sorbonne in Paris and Harvard University (PMD) as well as a Doctor of Law from the University of Münster.
Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Chafets is the Executive Chairman and founder of TG where he leads investments from seed to scale-up stages across various sectors ripe for digital disruption.
Based in Tel Aviv, Israel, he is our Chief Executive Officer. While at TG, Mr. Chafets has made multiple notable investments, including Auto1 (ETR: AG1), where he also sat on the Board and which recently went public at an IPO post-money valuation of over $9 billion on February 4, 2021. Other investments made by Mr. Chafets include McMakler, TravelPerk, Fresha and ZooZ (sold to PayUMoney). Prior to joining TG, Mr. Chafets was a partner at Berlin-based Hasso Plattner Ventures (HPV) where he invested in companies such as iZettle (sold to PayPal (NAS: PYPL)) and Hansoft and served as a Board member of DreamLines and reBuy.
Before that, Mr. Chafets was a partner at Giza Venture Capital in Tel Aviv where he invested in companies such as Soluto (sold to Asurion), Visual.ly (sold to ScribbleLive) and other early-stage internet ventures. Together with Giza Venture Capital, Mr. Chafets founded GPV, a pioneering Warsaw-based venture capital fund where Mr. Chafets led various Internet and Software investments.
Mr. Chafets co-founded SAM Seamless Network, a cyber-security technology company in 2016, and serves as its Vice-Chairman. Additionally, Mr. Chafets also co-founded LocaLoco (sold to Say Media Group), a social gaming start-up targeting emerging markets. Mr. Chafets started his career as a strategic consultant to GCS Issue Management Limited and to several members of the Israeli parliament and government.
Chief Investment Officer
Yaron Valler is the Chief Investment Officer and founder of TG, and is our Chief Investment Officer.
Prior to joining TG, Mr. Valler managed Hasso Plattner Ventures (HPV) as CEO. While at HPV, Mr. Valler invested in companies such as Panaya (sold to Infosys), Fyber (sold to RNTS Media), Delivery Hero (ETR: DHER which went public in 2017 at a valuation of over $4 billion) and many other leading companies in Berlin and Israel.
Mr. Valler previously led the enterprise software practice at Giza Venture Capital where he invested in companies such as Yadata (sold to Microsoft) and eGlue (sold to NICE Systems), he was an early-stage investor at the Technion Incubator and was a co-founder and Vice-President of Business Development at Excedo Technologies.
Mr. Valler holds an MBA from INSEAD in France and a B.Sc. in Information Systems Engineering from Ben-Gurion University in Israel.
In addition to the management team, our team consists of 30 investment experts who hold deep domain knowledge across various technology sectors including mobility, FinTech, SaaS, and marketplaces. Our sponsor’s investment team has wide-ranging experience across corporate development, M&A and capital markets within both the public and private markets at large corporates and financial institutions
Director
Ms. Rosenberg has over 14 years of experience in the health services industry in Israel.
Ms. Rosenberg is currently the CEO of Meuhedet Health Services, Israel’s third-largest health maintenance organization (HMO) serving approximately 1.3 million people. Prior to her role as CEO of Meuhedet Health Services.
Ms. Rosenberg was its Chief Financial Officer for 5 years, responsible for an approximately $2 billion budget. Before that, she worked at Clalit Health Services for over 11 years, holding various positions including Vice President of Innovation Planning and Research.
Ms. Rosenberg holds a M.A. degree in Social Sciences and Economics and a B.A. degree in Economics, Mathematics and Computer Science from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Director
Mr. Hinrichs is an entrepreneur and investor, having launched one of his first ventures at the age of 22, politik-digital.de, an award-winning platform for politics and new media.
Furthermore, Mr. Hinrichs founded XING in 2003 (ETR: NOW), a career-oriented social networking site, which he took public in 2006. In 2010, Mr. Hinrichs founded HackFwd, an innovative pre-seed investment company that supported Europe’s entrepreneurs in launching tech start-ups and included investments in YieldKit, Watchlater, Cobook and Infogr.am, amongst others.
Mr. Hinrichs is currently the founder and CEO of Cinco Capital, an independent investment company, and has been a member of the supervisory board at Deutsche Telekom AG (ETR: DTE) since October 2013 and has served as the chairman of the supervisory board of xbAV AG since 2016.
Mr. Hinrichs studied at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.
Director
Mr. Abbott is the founder and executive chairman of Columbia Care (NEO: CCHW), one of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturer of cannabis-related medicines in the United States of America and Europe, of which TG is a shareholder.
Mr. Abbott has over 30 years of experience in banking and finance. In 2002, Mr. Abbott founded Elysium Capital, a foreign exchange trading hedge fund, and in 2006 he was appointed as CEO of Robeco Sage, a billion-dollar fund of hedge funds. He started his financial career at Swiss Bank Corp. and later worked at Goldman Sachs where he eventually led its Structured Product Trading and Origination Group.
Mr. Abbott holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from King’s College London.
Director
Mr. Jeffrey Clarke has extensive public company experience, as well as information technology and technology enabled business model expertise derived from over 25 years in multi-industry executive and leadership roles.
Mr. Clarke currently serves as Director of Mondee Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MOND), as Director of Columbia Care Inc. (CSE: CCHW), and as Co-CEO of Emerge Technology Acquisition Corporation (NASDAQ: ETAC), a special purpose acquisition corporation.
Mr. Clarke also serves on the Board of Directors of FTD, LLC. Prior to this, Mr. Clarke spent five years as chief executive officer of Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE: KODK), where he led the restructuring and divestiture of its high multiple packaging print division, substantially reducing Kodak’s debt.
Mr. Clarke has also held numerous prominent roles within the technology industry, including chief executive officer, chairman and executive chair positions at Travelport Limited, a leading technology and distribution company in the travel industry. He has also served as chief operating officer for CA Software (NYSE: CA), executive vice president of global operations at Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and chief financial officer at Compaq Computer (NYSE: CPQ).
Mr. Clarke is a former director at Docker, Inc., Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK), Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), Compuware Corporation (NASDAQ: CPWR), Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE: OWW) and UTStarcom, Inc. (NASDAQ: UTSI). He earned his MBA from Northeastern University and now serves as a Northeastern University Trustee.
We believe Mr. Clarke’s experience makes him well-qualified to serve as a director on our Company’s Board. We believe Mr. Clarke’s public company experience, as well as information technology and technology enabled business model expertise derived from over 25 years in multi-industry executive and leadership roles makes him well-qualified to serve as a member of our Board.
Mr. Wurtman is the co-founder and Partner at PICO Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital fund headquartered in Jerusalem. He brings two decades of experience as an entrepreneur, executive, and investor who has played an active role in several high-profile start-ups including Vroom (NASDAQ: VRM) and Spot.io (acquired by NetApp), amongst others.
Prior to PICO, Mr. Wurtman was a General Partner at Benchmark Capital and worked for 3 years with Jerusalem Venture Partners. Furthermore, he launched his first company in 1993 and took several companies from founding to IPO (including Deltathree and Vroom).
Mr. Wurtman holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Government from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Talmudic Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Mr. Bachmann is an experienced entrepreneur and investor in the technology, media and telecommunications space.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Bachmann co-founded Glocalnet AB, a Swedish telecommunications company, and worked as a partner at MC Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm. In 2010, Mr. Bachmann co-founded Piton Capital, a venture capital firm in London focused on investing in businesses with network effects.
Mr. Bachmann currently holds various Board positions with companies such as Auto1 (ETR: AG1), ManoMano, Docplanner and Booksy. Mr. Bachmann holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from ETH Zurich.