Investors backing Israeli tech.

Ariel is a vice president in Bessemer’s Israel office where he focuses on companies in Israel and Europe. He was featured on Forbes 30 Under 30 for Israel. Prior to joining Bessemer, Ariel spent several years at Stripes Group, a growth equity firm in NYC, where he spearheaded the firm’s Israeli sourcing efforts and drove its first investment in the geography (Monday.com’s $50M Series C). He also played an active role in supporting companies across the firm’s consumer internet, fintech, and SaaS portfolio.

Aviad Ariel joined Vertex in early 2016, with a diverse background in Venture Capital and Management Consulting. Prior to joining Vertex, Aviad spent 4 years at Bessemer Israel, where he invested in and worked closely with the founders of several of Israel’s best startup companies including Traffix (acquired by F5), Ravello Systems (acquired By Oracle), Vayyar Imaging, ScyllaDB, MyHeritage, StratoScale, Soluto (acquired by Asurion), Altair (acquired by Sony), Fiverr (NASDAQ: FVRR) Intucell (acquired by Cisco) and Wix (NASDAQ:WIX). Aviad was also a founding partner of Oryzn Capital where he invested in NanoRep (acquired by LogMeIn), OwnBackup and Dronomy. Prior to Bessemer, Aviad worked at McKinsey & Company and Barclays Capital’s corporate strategy team in NY, and he started his career as a software engineer and a team leader at Marvell Technology.

Brought up and educated in the U.S. but with most of his career spent in Israel's innovation ecosystem, Brian has extensive experience in working with Israel-based founding teams on their product-market fit, strategic partnership development, and the aggressive pursuit of traction in key North American markets.Prior to Joule, Brian worked in Israel as the Director of Marketing for New York City-based venture fund 21Ventures, where he was responsible for developing and executing market entry and expansion strategies for the firm’s 45+ portfolio companies.

Bruce N. Barron is a partner and co-founder of Origin Ventures. He is an observer to, or member of, the Boards of Directors of DialogTech, MyAlerts, Bound, and Tock. He previously served on the GrubHub Board of Directors. In addition, he serves on the boards of the American Cancer Society, the Illinois Venture Capital Association, the Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities, and Israel Cancer Research Fund Chicago and International Chapters. Bruce was named a Crain’s Chicago Business Tech 50 member in 2013. He also provides funding for the Origin Ventures Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the University of Illinois. Since 1985, Bruce has been involved in the management of several start-up medical technology companies. From 1995 – 2007 he had served as a member of the Board of Directors of Applied NeuroSolutions, Inc. (APNS), a public biotechnology company developing a diagnostic to detect, and therapeutics to treat, Alzheimer’s disease. He also served as CEO of APNS from 1995-2004, and as Chairman of the Board from 1999-2006. From 1988 to 2001 Bruce also served on the Board of Directors of Trimedyne Inc., a public manufacturer of surgical lasers used to treat diseases and other medical conditions. He has served as President/Chairman CEO and/or CFO, from time to time, of the following companies: Gynex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (sold to what is now known as Savient Pharmaceuticals in 1993), Pharmatec Inc. (merged with Pharmos Corp. in 1992) and Xtramedics, Inc. (merged with Athena Medical Corp. in 1994). Bruce assisted in guiding these entrepreneurial, public companies through their early stages to their ultimate sales or mergers with larger companies. Bruce received a B.S. degree in Accounting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1977. He earned his C.P.A. certificate and worked as an accountant in the Chicago office of Touche Ross (the predecessor of Deloitte & Touche) and other medium-size public accounting firms. He left the practice of public accounting in 1985 to begin his entrepreneurial career.

Daniel Frankenstein is a co-Founder and Partner at JANVEST Capital Partners, a US based Venture Capital Firm investing in enterprise grade, deep technologies coming out of Israel and commercialized in the US. Daniel represents JANVEST on 8 Boards, providing guidance on follow-on financing rounds, the negotiation of significant customer and strategic relationships, and the onboarding of key C-level executives. His areas of expertise include the Internet of Things (IoT), enterprise software, and cyber security. Daniel also works closely with select Fortune 1000 multi-nationals to integrate JANVEST’s portfolio companies’ technology products. Before co-founding JANVEST, Daniel led the Corporate Executive Board’s (NYSE: CEB; acquired by Gartner in 2017) market entry into Israel where he resided for four years. Prior to running CEB’s Tel Aviv-based operations, Daniel worked out of the firm’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, partnering with 400 Fortune 1000 Chief Financial Officers. Daniel graduated from the University of California Berkeley with Highest Honors, completing a B.Sc. in Environmental Economics and Policy and a minor in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business. Daniel currently lives in Manhattan with his wife Erielle Reshef who is a Correspondent for ABC News and his two sons Mayr and Mavryk. Daniel is a citizen of both the United States and Israel.

Over the past 26 years, I have been a director on more than twenty-five technology company boards, bringing expertise on product and competitive strategy, risk, ESG and human resources, among other issues. I have strong M&A and financing experience, comprising dozens of transactions with leading technology companies and top investment banking firms. And I have worked with companies across the United States as well as internationally in Canada, Germany, Czech Republic and Israel. Sectors of experience and interest include SaaS, Cloud, Cybersecurity (Consumer, Enterprise and Infrastructure), Enterprise Software and more recently in Quantum Computing, Quantum Networking and Climate Technologies. My practice has focused largely in Financial Services, Internet Infrastructure, E-Commerce, Defense and Telecommunications markets.

David Magerman is a co-founder and managing partner at Differential Ventures. Previously, he spent the entirety of his career at Renaissance Technologies, widely recognized as the best quantitative hedge fund management company in the world. He helped found the equities trading group at Renaissance, joining the group in its earliest days, playing a lead role in designing and building the trading, simulation, and estimation software. On an extended garden leave from quantitative finance, he is looking to use his data science, software development, and statistical modeling expertise to help Israeli startups succeed in the global marketplace. David holds a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University where his thesis on Natural Language Parsing as Statistical Pattern Recognition was an early and successful attempt to use large-scale data to produce fully-automated syntactic analysis of text. David also earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Sciences and Information from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dror brings to Norwest many years of operational, go-to-market, technology, and entrepreneurial experience, having worked extensively in both the U.S. and in Israel as an investor and an executive in the past. He focuses on multi-stage (seed to pre-IPO) and multi-domain (enterprise, cloud, consumer, semi) investments related to Israel. Prior to joining Norwest, Dror served as executive vice president and Chief Strategy Officer of ECI, which he joined in 2004. In this role, he was responsible for ECI’s strategy, mergers and acquisitions, business development, and strategic marketing. He also served on the board of Veraz networks.

Erel N. Margalit is the Board Chairman of ThetaRay. Erel N. Margalit founded Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) over 25 years ago and is one of the chief architects of the start-up nation. Chosen for the Forbes Midas list as the leading non-American venture capitalist and by Israel’s prestigious business publication TheMarker as the “venture capitalist with the golden touch”. JVP continues to be repeatedly ranked as one of the top six venture capital firms in the world in terms of consistent fund returns. Under Erel’s leadership, JVP has raised over $1.4 billion across nine funds, spanning all stages of venture capital, and has orchestrated some of the largest exits out of Israel. These include the $4.8 billion sale of Chromatis to Lucent Technologies, the listing and sale of Netro for $5.5 billion, the NASDAQ listing and ultimate sale of Cogent Communications (NASDAQ: CCOI, current value $2.7 billion), the listing and exit of QlikTech for $2.6 billion (NASDAQ: QLIK) and the listing of CyberArk for $2.5 billion (NASDAQ: CYBR). With over 140 investments, 12 public offerings on NASDAQ and numerous industry sales, JVP’s portfolio companies continue to drive global markets today. As part of JVP’s global expansion under Erel’s leadership, JVP launched the International NYC Cyber Center. A New-York Cyber Security hub, in partnership with the City of New-York, The NYC Economic Development Corp, Columbia University, New York University, and Cornell. The newly established innovation greenhouse will be home to the greatest minds in the cyber field and will bridge between Israel and NYC. During his tenure as Member of the Israeli Knesset, between the years 2013 - 2017, Erel was a member of the prestigious national finance and foreign affairs committees. Erel holds a Doctor of Philosophy from Columbia University.

20+ years of finance, investment banking, philanthropy and lobbying experience. Previously, executive positions in Mergers and Acquisitions, Global Philanthropy, International Government Relations at JPMorgan Chase. Media Manager at Sun Microsystems. Developed and managed investment strategy and corporate relationships. Enjoys valuation, modeling, due diligence and championing founders and startups. Graduate of Wharton School of Business and the University of Michigan School of Business. Attended National University of Singapore and City of London Polytechnic. Conducted academic consulting project in Israel.

Glen has been in this industry for more than 25 years and brings some grey hair to the table, though he’s got less of it than he used to. After three years at Jerusalem Global, writing business plans for some of Israel’s top startups, Glen moved over to JVP where he spent close to a decade, partnering with some of that firm’s standout portfolio companies PowerDsine (IPO, then acquired by Microsemi), XMPie (acquired by Xerox), Cyoptics (acquired by Avago), Sheer Networks (acquired by Cisco) and Altair (acquired by Sony).

Hagi Schwartz joined Insight full-time in 2021 after serving as a senior advisor to Insight for multiple years. Prior to joining Insight, Mr. Schwartz held several executive positions at leading technology companies, including service as the CFO of Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP) and Mercury Interactive Corporation (Nasdaq: MERQ), where he was also the corporate controller and GM of the company’s Israel site, at the time of their respective IPOs. Additionally, Mr. Schwartz has been serving on the board of several technology companies, both public and private. Mr. Schwartz holds a BS in Economics and Accounting from Bar Ilan University.

Judah Taub is the Managing Partner & Co-Founder of Hetz Ventures. Before founding Hetz, Judah was Head of Data at Lansdowne Partners ($20B London based Hedge Fund) as well as advising multiple young start-ups. In his service in the Israel Defense Forces Judah served as an officer in a classified intelligence unit where he engineered a large-scale project to win the IDF 2014 Creativity Award. He has lectured widely, including throughout the IDF and at Wharton Business School, on time-management and creative thinking, and wrote a book for new IDF soldiers published by Yediot, Israel’s leading publisher. Judah was also elected as one of Forbes 30 Under 30 for 2020.

Mony is a Managing Director at M12, where he leads the fund’s activities in EMEA. He co-founded M12 in 2016, opening the Tel Aviv office and establishing fund strategy in the UK and Germany. Mony previously worked at Qualcomm Ventures as a Managing Director, Israel Lead. He attended Tel Aviv University. Mony has over 20 years of experience in venture capital, business development, research and development, and management. Previously a managing director at Qualcomm Ventures and Motorola Ventures in Israel, Mony led both offices from their earliest stages, developing them into the preeminent corporate venture capital firms in the region. Mony has invested in over 35 startups to date and currently serves on 15 boards in sectors including business applications, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity & identity, data & AI, and developer tools. He has shepherded 15 meaningful exits to date, including Mobileye (NYSE:MBLY)—which, at the time, was the largest-ever IPO of an Israeli company in the United States—as well as acquisitions by Intel, Qualcomm, and Facebook. One of Mony’s investments while at M12, Aqua, recently became a unicorn. Mony specializes in finding deep tech companies with highly disciplined founding teams and uses his diverse background to assist entrepreneurs in building resilient and agile businesses. Mony earned a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in electrical engineering as well as an MBA from Tel Aviv University, all with cum laude distinction.

Actively investing in technology companies in Europe, the US and Israel since 1992. Objectives are to identify unusually gifted entrepreneurs with innovative ideas and to help them build enduring, valuable businesses.

Ofer Schreiber oversees YL Ventures' investment processes and due diligence, portfolio companies management and value-add initiatives. Ofer is committed to empowering Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs to dominate the global market. He provides ideation support and strategic guidance to the firm’s portfolio companies and entrepreneurs in its pipeline along with introductions to customers, partners, and investors, and takes on active board roles. He is instrumental in developing the firm’s robust network within Israel’s cybersecurity ecosystem and regularly speaks, writes, and is featured in interviews about the industry, investment strategies, start-up development, and Israeli cybersecurity innovation. Prior to YL Ventures, Ofer focused on researching and analyzing the technology and venture capital industry at the IVC Research Center.

Pavel Livshiz is General Partner at Hetz Ventures. Previously, Pavel was a principal at Amiti Ventures, an Israeli early-stage fund. He is an aerospace engineer by education, with over nine years’ military career in Israeli elite technological intelligence units. Pavel entered the world of business first as an investment banking intern at Goldman Sachs, followed by a CMO position at a leading Israeli IoT start-up, followed by a consultant role at Bain & Company in Amsterdam. He was also the founder and president of Recanati Consulting Group. He received his BSc degree in aerospace engineering from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, and his MBA from Tel Aviv University Coller School of Management in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Peter is a CEO with a successful track record of growing innovative software and service businesses in the education, human capital management, and healthcare industries. Prior to his role as Managing Director at Insight Venture Partners, Peter led one of Insight’s portfolio company investments, serving as CEO and President of HealthcareSource, a high-growth, leading provider of talent management software to hospitals and other healthcare providers. Before HealthcareSource, Peter served as President North America Higher Education and member of the Senior Executive Team at Blackboard Inc., was EVP Sales and a member of the Board of Directors at WebCT, and a Partner in the Coopers & Lybrand Higher Education Consulting Group. He currently serves on the Board of American Student Assistance and Board of Governors for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Peter is an expert at building SaaS businesses, and is passionate about growing companies with positive, team-oriented cultures that create meaningful value for all stakeholders: customers, employees, partners and investors. In his role as Managing Director at Insight, Peter evaluates potential investments with the investment team, and serves as mentor and executive coach to Executive teams.

Richard joined Insight in 2005 and focuses on investments in application software, infrastructure management, devops, cybersecurity and defense technology.  Richard has sponsored over 40 investments at Insight and has realized 15 acquisitions and 2 IPOs. He has sponsored investments across the United States, Europe, Israel and South America. He currently serves on the boards of directors of AMCS, CentralReach, Commercetools, Exclaimer, Jama Software, OneTrust and Sonarsource.

Yoav brings to JVP over twenty years of experience in enterprise software, cyber security, cloud, AI and digital media. With his hands-on approach, Yoav works with and sits on the board of several of JVP’s companies including Pyramid Analytics, Quali, Centrical, Morphisec, Coronet, ThetaRay, ChainReaction, Rezilion, Appdome, Secret Double Octopus, SourceDefense, 1Touch.io and Akeyless. Past exits include CyActive, (acquired by PayPal), Loom (acquired by ServiceNow), Cnvrg.io (acquired by Intel) and Uponit. Prior to joining JVP, Yoav held General Management, Marketing, Business Development and Product executive positions, scaling startups from zero to tens of millions of revenues, and led strategic efforts vis-à-vis industry leaders such as Verizon, Comcast, Telefonica, Intel, CBS and Time Warner, in both B2B and B2B2C models. Yoav spent six years in the Israeli Air Force, managing mission critical technological projects.

Yoni Cheifetz is the Director of Cato Networks. He is based in Lightspeed’s Israel office and leads the firm’s investment activity in Israel with areas of interest that include Internet, digital media, mobile, communications, software, semiconductors, and cleantech. He has nine years of venture capital experience and sixteen years of operating experience. Previously, Yoni was a partner with Star Ventures, a leading Israeli venture capital fund. At Star Ventures, Yoni led investments into AeroScout (acquired by Stanley Black & Decker), Kabira (acquired by Tibco), Mercado (acquired by Omniture), Sandlinks, Sheer Networks (acquired by Cisco), and Teneros (acquired by Onging Operations). Before joining Star Ventures, Yoni was a serial entrepreneur for sixteen years, serving as a co-founder, CEO, chairman, or investor in several software companies, including: Demantra (acquired by Oracle), Agentics (acquired by Mercado), Earnix and Traiana (acquired by ICAP). Prior to his career as an entrepreneur, Yoni ran product management and business development for Click Software (CKSW). Yoni holds a BSc in Applied Mathematics from Tel-Aviv University and an MSc in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Most recently Dafna was leading the investment team in Israel for Innovation Endeavors, a Silicon Valley-based venture fund focusing on early and expansion stage technology businesses. Prior to that, she held a Principal role at 83North (formerly Greylock IL), a global multi-stage venture fund with offices in Israel and London. During her time at both Innovation Endeavors and 83North, Dafna was responsible for sourcing and analyzing new investment opportunities and also supporting portfolio companies in various strategic initiatives.In the United States, Dafna worked in the Global Corporate Strategy Office of the CEO at SAP (NYSE: SAP) in New York and before that worked as an Associate at McKinsey & Co. in Stamford, CT. Before relocating to the U.S., Dafna was a Product Manager at Eastman Kodak (NYSE: KODK) working on strategic corporate customers in Europe, Asia, and North America.While in the Israel Defense Forces, she served in an operational anti-aircraft missile battery and was the first female in the military’s history to be appointed Team Commander in the anti-aircraft commanders course.

Dana joined Amex in 2013 and held strategy, innovation, and marketing partnership roles in the Global Merchant Services and Global Corporate Payments organizations prior to joining the Amex Ventures team. Before Amex, Dana was an Associate at TASC Consulting & Capital, Israel's largest management consulting firm. Dana also spent 6 years as an officer in Israel's Elite Technological Intelligence Unit (8200). Dana holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA in Economics and Management, magna cum laude, from Tel Aviv University.

David has been active in Asia-Israel businesses since 1990 and in venture capital investments since 1996. David leads Vertex Ventures Israel’s Asian activities, including raising capital for Vertex funds from Asian investors. With his extensive experience in deal-making in Asia, he has also been initiating and facilitating numerous direct investment and business transactions between Vertex’s Asian investors and Israeli companies. Before Vertex, David co-founded IIF, the 1st Israeli VC fund tailored for Japanese corporate investors for investments in Israeli high-tech companies. He also co-founded COIF, the 2nd Israeli VC fund for Japanese investors.

Emanuel Timor joined Vertex in 1998 and has more than twenty years of experience working closely with start-ups. Emanuel is interested in start-ups in the fields of Enterprise, Cyber-Security, Mobility and Digital Health. Prior to joining Vertex, Emanuel was an articled apprentice at an Israeli law firm where he acquired expertise in IPOs and M&As. From 1992 to 1997, Emanuel was one of the leading financial journalists for Globes, Israel`s daily business newspaper. He covered the Israeli high-tech and venture capital industry.

Gadi has over 20 years of experience in the Hi-Tech industry, in management positions delivering products to global markets. A partner at JVP, Gadi heads JVP’s Cyber Labs, which aims to identify, nurture and build the next wave of cyber security and big data companies to emerge out of Israel. Gadi sits on the board of several of JVP’s companies including Teridion, Iguaz.Io, Vicarius, Valid, Compira Labs, Copilot, Datarix, and Cyberfish. Along with his expertise in building in go to market strategies and delivery life cycle, he brings enterprise management experience having worked with many Fortune 500 companies worldwide.

Jonathan Axelrod is a technology and media entrepreneur. A veteran of emerging technologies, he is an active entrepreneur, investor and start-up advisor. Jonathan was Co-Founder and Co-CEO of MusicGremlin a venture-backed startup that was sold in 2008 to SanDisk Corporation. MusicGremlin was a pioneer in the delivery of digital media content direct to wireless devices. Its WiFi MP3 player was named one of Time Magazine’s “All Time Top 100 Gadgets.” The company filed numerous patents and was recognized with several innovation awards. Prior to launching MusicGremlin, Jonathan was Co-Founder and President of Music123, a first-mover musical instrument e-commerce company that became one of the largest musical instrument retailers in the United States. Founded in 1999, Music123 grew from startup to profitable market leader in less than four years; it is now a brand of Guitar Center. Jonathan started his career as a McKinsey & Company consultant, where he focused on e-commerce initiatives and the financial services industry. Jonathan currently serves on the Board of Overseers of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. In his limited spare time, Jonathan enjoys watching the New York Giants win Super Bowls. He holds an A.B. in Social Studies magna cum laude from Harvard University.

Lee Shapiro is Managing Partner at 7wire Ventures, an investment firm he co-founded over a decade ago. He serves on the boards of Medidata Solutions [NASDAQ:MDSO], Tivity Health [NASDAQ:TVTY], and Aptus Health (f/k/a Physicians Interactive Holdings, a Merck subsidiary [NYSE:MRK]). He is also active with the 7wire portfolio and serves on the boards of Livongo Health, Ayogo Health, Carebox, Zest Health (Chairman), Modern Teacher (past Chairman), and Education Funding Partners. As President of Allscripts [NASDAQ:MDRX] from 2001 through 2012, his leadership was central to over $4B in mergers, acquisitions and financings. He oversaw the company's strategy, international operations, business development and partnerships, health plan initiatives and entrepreneurial business investments. He is a member of the Northwestern’s Kellogg Innovation Network Advisory Board, the University of Chicago Innovation Fund Advisory Committee, The Qualcomm Life Advisory Council and is on the advisory board for the Center of Digital Innovation in Health in Beer-Sheva, Israel. Lee is a member of the National Board of Directors of the American Heart Association. He has also served as an officer and director of the Gastro-Intestinal Research Foundation (GIRF), where he is now on the advisory board. Lee earned his JD degree from The University of Chicago Law School and a BS in Accounting from The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Lior founded Eclipse Ventures to meet the unique and unmet needs of entrepreneurs building full-stack start-ups. He is particularly excited to work with founders who want to bring the full-stack approach to legacy industries and build digital bridges to the physical world. Lior believes that complex problems require multidisciplinary solutions, and he likes to partner with audacious founders with big ideas. Prior to launching Eclipse, Lior was Founder and General Partner at LabIX, the hardware investment platform of Flextronics. LabIX brings together startups, OEMs, and technology partners across the entire hardware ecosystem. At LabIX, Lior led investments in companies across: energy storage, wireless/infrastructure, 3-D optics, additive manufacturing, and robotics. Lior also co-founded Farm 2050, an AgTech Collective, with Innovation Endeavors to address the global food challenge. Prior to LabIX, he was part of the founding team of Elementum, the Flex proprietary SaaS platform, which was later spun out. Before moving to Silicon Valley, Lior was a serial entrepreneur in Tel Aviv, where he helped build Intucell, which was sold to Cisco in 2012. Lior is a (Res) of an elite Special Forces unit in the Israel Defense Force.

Previously, Yael acted as Director of Product and Operations at Zebra Medical Vision (acquired by Nanox Vision). Yael spent her 11-year military career serving in the Israeli Elite Intelligence Unit and 8200 (49’), completing her service as Cyber Operations Commander (Rank Major). With over a decade of experience managing cross-functional teams, Yael has successfully led complex product development and technical projects from conception to completion.