TEL AVIV, Israel - Azritech in Tel Aviv is the newest in a series of private investment funds directed at hi-tech telecommunications, Internet, biotechnology and interfacing companies.

Azritech will be capitalized initially at $20 million by Canadian-Israeli real estate tycoon David Azrieli. "In Azritech we have the opportunity to help Israel grow," he said.

Ze'ev Ze'evi, who worked for Hewlett Packard and for Bezeq, the local telephony provider, was appointed Azritech CEO. "While Azritech will first concentrate on broadband and innovative telecommunications technologies, we will gradually start to amass the expertise required in biotechnology," he said.

Meanwhile, two weeks ago, 60 senior managers of Apax Partners Ventures Ltd., which spans nine countries, came to Israel to discuss the annual investment strategy of the firm's Tel Aviv-based branch, Apax Partners Ltd. Allan Barkat, managing director since its founding in 1994 of the Israeli branch of Apax, said its $140 million capitalization is modest in relation to the other locales.

"We have focused on four industry clusters having the greatest potential for growth: telecommunications; information technology, including the Internet; health care, comprising medical devices, actual care delivery and biotech; and financial services," Barkat said. "Most investments have been in the first two clusters, but the portfolio contains some highly innovative biomedical companies that are still reaching their potential, such as Compugen Ltd."

Also, during the past few weeks, the Institute for Medical BioMathematics (IMBM) was officially launched in the Bnei Atarot neighborhood of Jerusalem. Founder and chief scientist of IMBM, Zvia Agur, who is president of the Israeli Society for Biomathematics, described IMBM as a non-profit institute supported primarily by the Fifth RTD Program of the European Commission. Agur said IMBM has established a commercial arm, Optimata, a holding company for its intellectual property intended to attract venture capital to develop immediate medical applications for IMBM's discoveries, focusing on optimizing treatment of cancerous tumors and certain infectious diseases.

"Given the vast amounts of new data being generated by the human genome project, and our increased understanding of DNA, biomathematics will play an innovative role in enhancing medical and pharmaceutical science for the benefit of cancer patients," he said.