RF Dynamics, controlled by entrepreneur Shlomo Ben-Haim who is currently waging a legal battle over the control of the company, is boosting its roaster of investors. Calcalist learned that US based VC fund NEA has recently invested $20 million in the food division of the Israeli company which develops what has been dubbed the "magic oven" – an oven that uses radio waves to heat up food in a fraction of the time it takes for microwave oven.
NEA is considered one of the most prominent investment funds in Silicon Valley. So far, the fund has raised $11 billion in technology investments and its portfolio includes coupon giant Groupon, the world's leading cloud computing software developer Salesforce and the biotech company founded by Anne Wojcicki – the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. The fund also invests in many biotech enterprises and in software, internet and manufacturing projects.
RF Dynamics (recently renamed Goji) manufactures a cooking oven which uses radio waves for quick, precise and efficient cooking.
NEA joins the US conglomerate ITW which has invested $50 million in RF Dynamics in 2010, in exchange for company stock and is expected to pour another $450 million into the company for joint research and development activities over the next seven years. Company executives estimated in the past that the deal catapulted RF's market value to $311 million.
However, while investors continue to pour money into the company, its executives are continuing to wage war over the control of the company. Former executives Eran Ben-Shmuel and Alexander Bilchinsky claim Ben-Haim deprived them of stock and are seeking an injunction on the marketing of the company's products. Ben-Haim claims the two are making false claims on the company's IP.
RF Dynamics offered no response.