The Most Active Cybersecurity Investors in Israel (2026)

The most active cybersecurity investors in Israel fall into three layers, and the first one matters most. The cyber-only seed specialists come at the front: Cyberstarts, YL Ventures, Glilot Capital Partners, Team8 and Merlin Ventures, funds built to write the first cheque into a security company and, in the sharpest cases, to help assemble the company before there is one. Behind them sit the generalist Israeli funds with heavy cyber books: TLV Partners, Pitango, Vertex Ventures Israel, Aleph and Entrée Capital. And a row of American funds runs standing Israel practices: Insight Partners, Index Ventures, Bessemer and Lightspeed with offices on the ground, Greylock with a dedicated Israel partner, and Sequoia leading the biggest rounds without a confirmed local office. That is the shortlist. The rest of this piece is who writes what, with fund sizes and dated deals. It is the Israel cut of the most active cybersecurity VCs globally.

Here is the fact that reframes the market. In 2025, for the first time, global VCs rather than Israeli VCs became the leading source of seed capital for Israeli cyber startups, per Startup Nation Central and YL Ventures' State of the Cyber Nation report: US funds led 44 seed rounds, Israeli funds led 35, and 13 were co-led. The country that invented the modern cyber-VC playbook is now being seed-funded from outside it. Set that against the scale it produces. A nation of roughly 9.8 million people was the target in two of 2025's three largest tech acquisitions on the planet, Wiz at $32 billion and CyberArk at around $25 billion. I read this from an operator's seat, because I run growth for MSPs and cyber firms and watch where money actually moves rather than where the press release says it does.

This publishes alongside companion maps of the UK, Europe and the Middle East. Israel is the one market in the set where the specialist layer is genuinely novel, because no other geography has a fund that backs founders before there is a product. One caveat before the numbers: several of the biggest figures come from press releases or one firm's own reporting, not audited data, so I attribute the soft ones as I go.

The cyber-only specialist funds, the core of the market

Specialists raise cyber-only capital and take the earliest bets. This layer has no equivalent in the UK or Gulf pieces, because Israel is the only market where a fund can credibly say it starts a company rather than waits for one. When one of these leads your seed, you are buying a CISO network and a set of design partners a generalist rarely matches.

Cyberstarts

Founded in 2018 by Gili Raanan, a former Sequoia Israel partner, and the most distinctive fund in the country. Cyberstarts has raised more than $1.4 billion across seven funds, closing a second $380M Opportunity Fund in September 2025 alongside a fourth $60M seed fund a year earlier. The model is why it is worth studying. Under its Sunrise playbook, CISOs from large enterprises advise founders before there is a product, the founder returns with a sketch of a solution and early design partners, and only then does the company get built. It is the closest thing in venture to manufacturing demand before supply. It has also drawn scrutiny: Sunrise originally let participating CISOs share a carried-interest pool tied to their advisory calls, and Raanan suspended that compensation in 2024. The portfolio is the flex: Wiz, Cyera, Island and Fireblocks. Cyberstarts says its holdings represent nearly half the global market cap of private cybersecurity companies and are worth north of $60 billion, but both figures are self-reported, so read them as the firm's framing.

YL Ventures

A US and Israel seed specialist that closed its fifth fund at $400 million in 2022, taking total assets to $800 million across five funds. It leads seed rounds for roughly ten startups per fund at about three a year, then follows on, with Axonius and Orca Security as the marquee positions. One nuance that circulates wrong: YL sold a $270 million secondary stake in Axonius to crossover investors including Iconiq and Alkeon. That is a partial secondary, not a company exit, and Axonius is still private. Its real exits ran through strategics, Palo Alto Networks buying Twistlock and Microsoft buying Hexadite among them. YL also co-authors the State of the Cyber Nation report behind most of the sector-wide 2025 numbers here.

Glilot Capital Partners

Founded in 2011 and self-described as the world's first cyber-focused VC. Glilot closed $500 million in 2025, including a $220M fourth seed fund and a $180M Glilot+ vehicle for post-Series-A software and security, lifting total AUM past $1 billion. It invests from seed through Series B, and its exit sheet is deep for its size: Cider Security to Palo Alto Networks, CyberX to Microsoft, IntSights to Rapid7, with At-Bay and Noma Security in the current book. The firm claims 22 exits since inception.

Team8

Less a fund than a studio with a fund attached. Team8 co-builds one or two companies a year from scratch, assembling the founding team and first design partners itself before it writes the cheque, on top of a separate VC arm. It raised $500 million in 2023, taking total assets well over $1 billion, backed by strategic LPs including Microsoft, Cisco, SoftBank and Walmart. Claroty, the industrial-security company, is its one unicorn to date. The cleanest illustration of the model is Sygnia: Team8 put in roughly $4.3 million about three years before Temasek bought the company for $250 million.

Merlin Ventures

The newest and smallest specialist, with a stated edge in sourcing Israeli companies for the US market. Merlin closed a $75 million oversubscribed inaugural fund in 2025 and built its Israel team back in 2021. Its predecessor vehicles already returned six exits, including Talon and Dig Security, both bought by Palo Alto Networks, plus InfoSec Global to Keyfactor and Veriti to Check Point. It co-invests with larger US funds such as Lightspeed and Norwest. Given the fund size, I would treat Merlin as a specialist bench player, not a lead for a large round.

The generalist Israeli funds with real cyber books

Strip out the cyber-only shops and a set of large generalist Israeli funds still shows up in security cap tables, usually leading the Series A and following on. The ones worth naming have a dated cyber deal you can point to, not a security theme they never funded.

Pitango is Israel's oldest and largest VC, founded in 1993 by Rami Kalish and Chemi Peres, with more than $3 billion across its funds; its marquee cyber bet is Varonis, now public on Nasdaq, and it backed CyberMDX before Forescout bought it. Vertex Ventures Israel has run since 1997 with more than 40 exits worth around $22 billion, and its cleanest recent cyber outcome is Own, which Salesforce bought for $1.9 billion in cash in 2024. TLV Partners runs more than $1 billion since 2015, with Aqua Security as its headline name and Puresec as a Palo Alto Networks exit. Entrée Capital, spanning Tel Aviv, London and New York with $1.5 billion and 43 exits, lists Talon Cyber and Perimeter81 among its outcomes. Aleph is mostly a consumer and fintech shop (Wix, Lemonade, monday.com) with one standout cyber bet, Dream Security in critical-infrastructure protection. Read Aleph as a generalist with a cyber exception, not a cyber fund.

The Americans in Tel Aviv

The scale-up and growth capital increasingly comes from American funds, and most of the ones that matter keep partners or offices physically in Israel rather than parachuting in for a single deal; Sequoia is the exception that wins the biggest rounds from outside. This is the layer that grew fastest in the 2025 reversal.

Insight Partners

The deepest-pocketed of the group in Israel, with a Tel Aviv office since 2019 and close to $6 billion invested over two decades. Its defining position is Wiz: Insight co-led the $250 million Series C in 2021 at a $6 billion valuation and held the position to the Google acquisition, where a reported 8 percent stake was worth roughly $2.7 billion at close. When a growth cheque outgrows the seed specialists, Insight is usually in the room.

Sequoia Capital

No standing Israel office I could confirm, but repeatedly the lead on the largest rounds. Sequoia led both of Cyera's early rounds, the $56 million Series A in 2022 and the $100 million Series B in 2023, and stayed in through the January 2026 round that took Cyera to a $9 billion valuation. It also sat in Wiz's Series C. Proof you do not strictly need boots on the ground to win the marquee Israeli deals, though it helps.

Index Ventures

Opened a formal Israel office at the end of 2022 and put roughly $500 million into 32 Israeli companies. It was an early Wiz investor, and its most recent notable move is backing Frame, a $50 million round for deepfake-detection and awareness training. Index is one of the funds that recycled Wiz proceeds straight back into the next wave of Israeli cyber.

Bessemer Venture Partners

The longest-tenured of the group, investing in Israel for more than 30 years, with a Tel Aviv office and partners Adam Fisher and Amit Karp based there. Bessemer has put over $1 billion into 50-plus Israeli startups in the past decade across SaaS, infrastructure and security. I did not pin a single flagship Israeli cyber round to Bessemer in this pass, so I will not invent one; treat it as broad, durable exposure.

Lightspeed Venture Partners

One of the earliest US funds into Israel, with an office since 2006 and cybersecurity named as a core focus for the practice. Its Israel security book is long: Skybox Security (a $342 million exit), Axonius, Cato Networks, CyCognito, BlinkOps and Cyera among them. Lightspeed treats Israeli cyber as a repeat category, not an occasional bet.

Greylock

Active in Israel for more than 20 years, reportedly its most active geography outside the Bay Area, with a history running through Palo Alto Networks, Okta, Imperva, Cato Networks, Dazz and Wiz. Signalling that it is formalising the practice, it named Mor Chen a dedicated Israel partner in 2025, and co-led Tenzai's $75 million seed in AI-native security alongside Battery Ventures and Lux Capital.

Two more earn a line. Battery Ventures has backed around 30 Israeli companies over 15 years, recently moved into larger Tel Aviv offices, and co-led that Tenzai seed. And CRV has a thin direct presence, but its diaspora matters: Striker Venture Partners, founded by ex-CRV partner Max Gazor with several CRV alumni, is now cutting Israeli cyber cheques (Vega Security, Astrix, SevenAI, and Trail Security, which Cyera later acquired). Worth tracking as emerging, not established.

The machine that feeds all of them

None of this works without the founder pipeline, and in Israel that is largely one institution. Alumni of the IDF's Unit 8200 signals-intelligence corps are credited, in a widely cited 2016 Forbes estimate, with founding more than 1,000 companies, including Check Point, CyberArk and, via their earlier startup Adallom, the founders of Wiz. Treat that as a well-sourced estimate, not an audited count. The alumni network runs founder programs that have supported 300-plus companies and connect into roughly 14,000 people worldwide. The technical training is the raw material; the specialist funds above exist to catch it early. As a scale marker, Israel exported around $11 billion of cybersecurity technology as of 2021, close to a tenth of the global market that year, though that figure is now several years old.

So why did foreign capital overtake domestic in 2025? The mechanism is simpler than the headline. Israeli domestic VC fundraising itself shrank: 22 local funds raised a combined $1.3 billion in 2024, down from 34 funds raising $2.2 billion in 2023. That supply gap let global seed capital take the lead for the first time. Founders responded with a deliberate split-seed play, pairing one Israeli cyber specialist for domain expertise and CISO access with one global fund for capital depth and US reach, in the same round. That is the structural reason a Cyberstarts or a YL keeps showing up in the same cap table as a Sequoia or an Insight rather than competing for it.

The exit ledger, 2024 to 2026

The exits are the flywheel: capital and talent recycle out of each acquisition and back into the next seed round, which is why the same names keep reappearing. Across 2019 to 2024 there were 116 acquisitions of VC-backed Israeli cyber companies generating more than $23 billion in combined value, per NightDragon's count, with 44 percent closing at or above $100 million. The 2024 detail worth noting was speed: most $100 million-plus exits happened after only a seed or Series A, and average time to a $100 million exit fell by nearly a third year over year. Then 2025 went vertical, with Israeli tech M&A at roughly $71 billion to $74 billion for the year by Startup Nation Central's count (the range reflects different reporting cutoffs on the same dataset), cybersecurity accounting for well over half of Q3 deal value. The acquirer-side context for these buyers sits in the cybersecurity market map.

Two deserve a second look. Aim Security sold to Cato for around $350 million having raised roughly $28 million total, and it was Cato's first-ever acquisition. Avalor's headline needs a caveat: Israeli press reported $350 million while Zscaler's own filing books the consideration nearer $257 million, the gap between reported deal value and accounting purchase price that recurs across this market. When you read an exit number, ask whose figure it is.

Gulf capital, and how little of it reaches Israel

Because this piece spun out of the regional Middle East map, the obvious question is whether Gulf sovereign capital reaches Israeli cyber after the Abraham Accords. The honest answer is a little, indirectly, and less than the headlines imply. The one verified route is fund-of-funds: in January 2022 Mubadala committed $100 million into six Israeli VC firms, Viola, Pitango, Entrée, Aleph, Mangrove and MizMaa, up to $20 million each. That is real capital touching the ecosystem, but there is no public line-item cyber allocation inside it, so it is exposure through funds rather than a direct cyber bet. It is also the strongest cyber-adjacent data point for Viola, which is why Viola sits here rather than in the generalist table. Everything larger is still announcement-stage: the UAE named a $10 billion fund for investments in Israel with cyber among its sectors, and no deployed cyber deals have been evidenced from it. There is no confirmed Gulf sovereign name in the Wiz or Cyera cap tables; Cyera's January 2026 round listed Blackstone, Accel, Coatue, Cyberstarts, Georgian, Lightspeed, Sapphire and Sequoia, no Gulf investor. For the broader Gulf picture, see the Middle East map.

One methodology note, because the totals travel and get misquoted. You will see Israel's 2025 cyber funding stated as around $4.1 billion (Startup Nation Central's wider lens on what counts as an Israeli cyber company) and as $2.5 billion in the global VC piece, drawn from Return on Security's tracker of pure-play cyber vendors on a narrower definition. Same market, two defensible methodologies, roughly $1.6 billion of spread. When you see an Israel cyber total, the first question is whose count, because it moves the answer by more than half. The Blackstone-led Cyera round is also a reminder that growth-stage cyber here now pulls in private-equity money, which I cover in the private equity firms buying cybersecurity.

What it means if you are raising

The practical read is that the layer you approach should match your stage, and the split-seed play is now a deliberate, increasingly common structure rather than a clever exception. At pre-seed and seed, the specialists are the domain-expert leads: Cyberstarts if you fit the pre-company Sunrise model, YL or Glilot for a more conventional seed, Team8 if you are co-building rather than pitching, Merlin as a specialist follower. Pair one with a global fund in the same round, because the 2025 data says the capital depth now sits there and the founders who win take both. At Series A and growth, the Americans lead: Insight, Index and Lightspeed from their Tel Aviv offices, Greylock through its dedicated Israel partner, and Sequoia from outside, with Bessemer underneath the market on long, patient exposure. Do not chase Gulf capital as classic venture money; on current evidence it reaches Israeli cyber only through funds, if at all. If you want the deepest specialist network for a security company anywhere, it still lives in Israel and the US, mapped fund by fund in the global VC piece.

Frequently asked questions