Himel Ventures

Himel Ventures

Himel Ventures operates as a hybrid investment platform built by co-founders Avery Hager and Elliot Zemel. The firm’s structure bridges two normally separate allocation streams: direct venture investments in early-stage, seed, and startup companies, and direct ownership of commercial and residential real estate. Real estate holdings traceable to the principals include 7083 Hollywood Boulevard, the South Pasadena Care Center, and a mixed-use property at 327 N Formosa Avenue in Los Angeles, alongside a residential portfolio in Cleveland. The Hager family’s involvement runs through both the investment entity and the Hager Family Charitable Trust, where Mark Hager serves as trustee — suggesting a portion of the capital base originates with family wealth, though the exact source remains undisclosed. The firm pursues generalist venture investing, with stage coverage running from pre-seed through early growth. Geographic focus is split between its Los Angeles base and broader US opportunities. The real estate side is operationally anchored: Yudi Schmukler is identified as a business partner in the acquisition and operation of the South Pasadena Care Center, a skilled nursing facility, making Himel one of the relatively few family-backed platforms that combine venture-stage technology bets with income-generating healthcare real estate. This operational real estate posture provides a yield component that most pure-venture family offices lack. Team size and total deployment are not publicly disclosed. The organizational map shows two co-founders — Zemel also manages Koze Investments LLC, while Hager separately founded Regah Ventures and chairs The Regah Group, indicating a broader private holding-company structure beyond the Himel Ventures label. The Hager Family Charitable Trust and the Toward Jones Scholarship round out the family’s philanthropic footprint, though separation of governance between the investment and charitable entities is not detailed in available materials. What differentiates Himel Ventures structurally is the direct operating-company exposure embedded inside a venture platform. The South Pasadena Care Center is not a passive real estate holding — it involves an operating partner and an active management structure. This architecture creates a cash-flow base that can stabilize a venture portfolio’s liquidity profile, a structure more commonly seen in European family holding companies than in US family offices of comparable size.