Israeli venture capital firm Viola Ventures has announced the closing of its $250 million sixth fund. This brings Viola's assets under management to more than $1.25 billion, solely dedicated to early-stage investments.
Over the years, Viola Ventures has supported some of the most successful technology companies founded in Israel, including global category leaders ironSource, Payoneer, Redis, Verbit, Outbrain, Pagaya, Lightricks and Immunai.
Viola Ventures had a highly successful 2021, with eight of its portfolio companies reaching unicorn status and beyond. Portfolio company ironSource held asn IPO at a valuation of $11 billion and Pagaya has announced its public listing at an $8.5 billion valuation. Viola Ventures, which was the first institutional investor in both companies, recorded up to a one hundred-fold return on these investments.
Viola Ventures general partner Danny Cohen said, "It’s not only important to invest in high-performing companies but to invest in them early. Our track record proves that we know how to identify outstanding teams, aggressively be the first money, and then support them to unicorn status and beyond. We are confident that our sixth fund will help grow the next generation of market leaders."
Viola Ventures' new fund will invest in 25-30 early-stage (seed and A-round) companies. The fund will continue to invest in those sector in which it has had consistent success such as fintech, vertical AI and deep tech, as well as emerging sectors such as digital health, next-gen enterprise infrastructure, SaaS 3.0, Web 3.0, and cybersecurity.
Viola Venture general partner Omry Ben David said, "The Israeli ecosystem has shattered its own glass ceiling reaching 60 unicorns, 33 of them in the last 12 months. Viola Ventures invested less than 0.5% of the capital deployed in Israel in 2021 and has -15% of Israel’s total unicorns. The Israeli tech ecosystem is definitely evolving. Israeli entrepreneurs have growing aspirations and we are seeing more Israeli companies going public and staying independent, thus controlling their own destiny for longer."
Viola Ventures recently promoted Yael Alroy, a principal at the fund, to partner and appointed a dedicated partner from the executive search industry, Jeff Shapiro, to assist portfolio companies in building their global and local management teams, a growing challenge for Israeli startups as they scale.
The Viola Ventures investment team includes Shlomo Dovrat, Avi Zeevi, Daniel Cohen, Omry Ben David, Zvika Orron, Yael Alroy, Itzik Avidor, and Rotem Shacham.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 20, 2022.
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