Two major US venture capital firms are strengthening their operations in Israel, filling the void left by others such as Tiger Global and SoftBank that have significantly reduced their investments in Israeli startups.
The first venture capital firm to return to Israel is Greylock, one of the largest firms in Silicon Valley, which operated in Israel through a dedicated venture capital fund until 2015, and has now appointed Mor Chen as its local representative. In the past, Greylock has invested in Facebook, Palo Alto Networks, and Airbnb.
In contrast to its previous activity in Israel, where the Greylock brand was awarded to an Israeli fund raised by Israeli partners and allocated to investments in Israel, it now continues to invest directly from its global venture capital fund, as it has been in recent years, except that it will have Now a local representative. Greylock's recent investments in Israel include cybersecurity companies Wiz, Upwind, and Apiiro.
Until recently, Mor Chen was Vice President at Accel and together with foreign partners Andrei Brasoveanu and Philippe Botteri jointly managed investments in Israeli companies such as Cyera, Melio, Snyk and Oasis. Chen is a graduate of the IDF's 8200th Intelligence Unit. Greylock Israel founded the venture capital fund 83North, without any connection to Greylock, along with partner Laurel Bowden.
The second major venture capital firm to strengthen its presence in Israel is Sequoia Capital, which has appointed Dean Mayer as its representative. Sequoia has a similar story to Greylock, which operated in Israel through a dedicated fund called Sequoia Israel until the last decade, managed by Shmil Levy, Haim Sadger and Gil Raanan. In recent years, Sequoia has continued to invest directly in Israel, mainly through veteran partner Doug Leon.
There was no response from Mor Chen and Greylock.
Published by Globes, Israel Business News – en.globes.co.il – on June 2, 2024.
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