US venture capital fund Greylock, which over the years has invested in Facebook, Instagram, and Palo Alto Networks, is returning to Israel with local representation after more than a decade. As previously reported by Globes, the fund has appointed Mor Chen, an Israeli who previously invested as a partner for UK fund Accel. According to Greylock's press release on Wednesday, Chen will focus on investments in the Israeli market and next year will move to Israel from San Francisco to establish the fund's Israeli branch.
In the early 2000s, the fund operated through Greylock Israel, which was managed by Yoram Snir, Arnon Dinur and Erez Ofer. From 2011, the relationship with the US fund began to loosen, and in 2015, the Greylock Israel team founded the venture capital fund 83North, without any connection to Greylock, together with British partner Laurel Boden. After Greylock Israel's closure, Greylock continued to engage in remote investments in Israeli cybersecurity companies, the most notable of which are Palo Alto Networks, Cato Networks, Upwind, as well as Wiz and Dazz, which merged at the end of last year in a deal in which Greylock was one of the matchmakers.
Chen, 34, until recently managed Accel's investments in Israel, and among others invested in Cyara, Oasis, Commodor and Gloat. Prior to Accel, Chen was a consultant at Strategy&, where she contributed to high-profile projects, including Nvidia’s acquisition of Mellanox. She later served as Managing Director of 8200 EISP, the accelerator program of the 8200 Intelligence Unit Alumni Association, where she remains a board member.
In recent years, Greylock's investments in Israel have been almost exclusively in cybersecurity companies. The US fund is also offering experienced Israeli entrepreneurs a special pre-seed investment program, which allows them to find the idea for starting a company through meetings with potential customers, brainstorming and examining financing options. Such programs have become popular among cybersecurity investment funds like Cyberstarts and YL for locating talented cybersecurity entrepreneurs, even if they have not yet found a suitable idea for starting a new company.
Veteran US venture capital funds Greylock and Sequoia are returning to Israel after a long period of investing in Israeli cybersecurity companies, mainly jointly with Cyberstarts. They now want to identify such companies themselves from the seed stages and not only invest in them in more mature fundraising rounds.
Sequoia appointed Dean Meyer as its representative in Israel. Sequoia has a similar story - until the past decade, it also operated a dedicated capital fund for Israel under the name "Sequoia Israel", which was managed by Shmil Levy, Haim Sadger and Gili Raanan. When the fund ceased operations, Sadger left to found the S-Capital fund, while Raanan founded Cyberstarts. Sequoia continued to invest in Israel all the time, mainly through longtime partner Douglas Leone.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 22, 2025.
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