Venture Capital firm StageOne Ventures has announced last week that it has completed raising $235 million which will go towards its fourth fund. The new fund will operate based on a dual model: a primary fund of $150 million to focus on seed investments for early-stage start-ups, and, in parallel, an additional $85 million will be used for follow-on investments in the new fund’s leading portfolio companies.
VCs helping the Start-Up Nation
It is great to see that venture capital firms are starting the new year off right- raising funds, and excited to start investing in new and existing start-ups. StageOne Ventures has been investing in exceptional entrepreneurs in Israel and abroad for over two decades, helping them build companies from the idea stage, all the way to exits. It has invested in over 50 companies to date, including some of Israel’s most noted technology companies such as Coralogix, Nueroblade, Silverfort, Commonground and Theator AI. The fund focuses on early-stage ventures with innovative technologies that solve complex challenges for the enterprise and B2B markets. Most investments are made at the seed stage, during the companies’ formation, and include an allocation of significant reserves for follow-on investments.
The firm is extremely proud to note that all previous funds are ranked in the top quartile of venture capital firms in the world and have consistently demonstrated superior returns compared to both global and local VC firms. Some of their recent exits include Epsagon, acquired by Cisco, Avanan, acquired by CheckPoint, Otonomo, which was listed on NASDAQ, and Apolicy, acquired by Sysdig. StageOne was the first investor in all four companies and was a significant shareholder at the time of exit. Other notable exits include Octalica (2006), Trivnet (2010), Guardium (2009), Traffix (2012), Oversi (2012), Cvidya (2016), SafeDK (2019), Apprente (2019).
New year, new funds, new beginnings for some…
Their new, fourth fund will continue investing in Israeli companies with a technological edge at the earliest stages that are developing ground-breaking products for the enterprise market. Most of the investors in the new fund are repeat investors from previous StageOne funds, including institutional and private investors from the US, Israel, Europe, and Japan.
They also announced the promotion of Nate (Netanel) Meir to partner. Meir has over a decade’s experience with investments, business development and management in the world of VC, global companies, and start-ups. He now works alongside the other managing partners: Yuval Cohen (Founder), Tal Slobodkin, Tal Jacobi (CFO). The investment team also includes two Principals: Nofar Schnider and Aviad Ben-Laish. Schnider is a graduate of the IDF’s elite 8200 unit and is highly experienced in the management of software development teams. She is also a co-founder of the NuVC community for young investors. Ben-Laish, who joined recently, is a veteran of almost a decade at Accenture Ventures and has a wealth of experience in business and innovation strategy.
“Given the massive Israeli technology companies’ successes we saw in the past year, we believe that Israel will produce more global, category-leading technology companies in the coming years, and we are preparing accordingly. The new fund will allow us to continue leading early-stage investments and provide entrepreneurs with their initial funding as well as any follow-on investment rounds necessary to build leading companies,” said Founder and Managing Partner, Yuval Cohen.
StageOne was founded in 2001, and now has $500 million in assets under its management.
