by Neal Sandler in Tel Aviv

With the promotion to general partner of two executives in London and New York, Israel's Jerusalem Venture Partners signals that its latest fund will be even more international than its prior ones.

The two, Laurel Bowden in London and Michael Carus in New York, will seek investment opportunities in communications, enterprise and networking software.

JVP, which is one of Israel's largest funds with $650 million under management, closed a $400 million fourth fund in November from limited partners including Boeing Co., France Telecom, Reuters Ltd., Merrill Lynch Ventures and Mitsui & Co. Ltd. It has already invested about one-quarter of that fund.

"They view themselves these days as a global venture capital fund and no longer strictly as an Israeli fund," said a prominent Israeli venture capitalist who asked not to be identified.

Even JVP's founder and managing partner, Erel Margalit, resides these days in New York, and press announcements emanate from there as well.

Bowden said "40% to 50% of the deals in the new fund will be with Israeli or Israeli-related companies" and the remainder will involve U.S. and European startups. JVP's previous fund of $161 million, closed in 1999, had far higher exposure to Israeli startups, she said.

The strategic shift comes as Israeli startups raised only $291 million in the second quarter, down 43% from the same period a year earlier, according to a report by Israel Venture Capital.

Despite the broader geographic focus, Carus said Israel still plays an important role as a technology research and development center and cited two recent fundings in Israeli enterprise software companies to underline his point. MagniFire Websystems Inc., which develops software to ensure the secure delivery of Web pages, and Cyber-Ark Inc., another Internet security-related startup, are both based on the East Coast but have research centers in Tel Aviv.

Further, with the telecommunications sector in the doldrums, JVP will also shift focus from that sector. "About 40% of our investments in this fund will be in enterprise-related startups," said Carus, who is also JVP's COO and CFO. Carus has broad experience in the sector as CFO for four years at Fundtech, a Tel Aviv-based enterprise software developer.