Israel venture capital firm Cyberstarts, which specializes in investments in early stage Israeli cybersecurity companies, today announced the closing of the $60 million Cyberstarts Seed Fund III. This fund was raised only a few months after the firm raised $200 million for a new opportunity fund in February 2022, bringing total assets under management to $374 million.
Cyberstarts has also announced the appointment of Doug Merritt, former President and CEO of Splunk, to chair Sunpeak, its new go-to-market (GTM) advisory board. Sunpeak will provide Cyberstarts’ portfolio companies with hands-on guidance from technology leaders on scaling GTM strategy and creating repeatable sales cycles to ensure early success. The addition of this community is a natural next step in the firm’s mission to build the world’s most important cybersecurity companies.
Cyberstarts’ investors and limited partners (LPs) comprise leaders and entrepreneurs including Shlomo Kramer of Cato Networks, Imperva and Check Point, Marius Nacht of Check Point, Nir Zuk from Palo Alto Networks, Udi Mokady from CyberArk, Nir Polak of Exabeam and Michael Shaulov of Fireblocks. These investors provide strategic counsel to portfolio companies and entrepreneurs from guidance on product-market fit to talent recruitment.
Founded in 2018, Cyberstarts is managed by Lior Simon and Gili Raanan. Simon said, "Building the world’s most important cybersecurity companies requires more than capital - it requires a methodical and holistic investment model from day one by investing in the right talent and supporting them across every business function from initiation to product-market fit and beyond. We take a unique approach to mentoring our portfolio companies via our Sunrise and now, Sunpeak communities."
Cyberstarts’ first fund showed a weighted annual return to investors of 300% and its portfolio companies raised a total of $2 billion in 2021, with a combined valuation of $20 billion, from firms including Sequoia, Greylock, Lightspeed, Index, Insight, Accel, General Atlantic and many more.
Recent Cyberstarts investments have been in Wiz, which had a most recent company valuation was $6 billion and Fireblocks, which had a most recent valuation of $8 billion.
Raanan said, "Most of the entrepreneurs we have partnered with grow into significant businesses over a short period of time because we invest in people, not ideas. In fact, sometimes our portfolio companies don’t even have the ‘idea’ prior to investment. We have created a highly differentiated vehicle, dubbed Sunrise, that relies on communities of experienced cybersecurity entrepreneurs and forward-thinking CISOs and CIOs to drive the creation of the most influential cybersecurity companies in the world. I’m excited to have Doug Merritt join our team to help create the cybersecurity textbook for optimizing go-to-market strategy as chair of our Sunpeak advisory board. The addition of this new community is a natural next step in our mission to build the world’s most important cyber companies."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 24, 2022.
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