Viola Ventures, Israel’s leading venture capital firm, yesterday announced the closing of its sixth fund of $250M, dedicated solely to early-stage investments. The fund also recently promoted Yael Alroy, from Principal to Partner, and appointed Partner Jeff Shapiro, to assist portfolio companies in building their global and local management teams, a growing challenge for Israeli start-ups as they scale.

The sixth fund’s a charm...

The Israeli ecosystem has shattered its own glass ceiling this last year; tech firms raised  $25.6 billion (representing 136% growth in equity investments over 2020), 22 tech companies went public with a cumulative market cap of more than $84 billion, and Israel saw 33 new unicorns (bringing the total to 60). Since the Israeli tech ecosystem is evolving with Israeli entrepreneurs displaying growing aspirations, we are seeing more Israeli companies going public and staying independent. This allows them to stay in control of their own companies for longer. This is where Viola Ventures comes in– in the past year, eight of its portfolio companies reached unicorn status and beyond. Portfolio company ironSource became a Decacorn (one of five in Israel) going public at a valuation of $11 billion and Pagaya announced its public listing at an $8.5 billion valuation. Viola Ventures, which was the first institutional investor in both companies, recorded up to 100 times the return on these investments. Their other notable investments include Payoneer, Redis, Verbit, Outbrain, Lightricks and Immunai. In hopes of keeping up their impeccable track record, their new sixth fund couldn't have come at a better time.

With the new fund, Viola Ventures will invest in 25-30 early-stage (seed and Series A) companies. The fund will continue to invest in its core verticals in which it has had consistent success such as fintech, vertical AI and deep tech, as well as in verticals it expects to generate the next cohort of global outliers such as digital health, next-gen enterprise infrastructure, SaaS 3.0, Web 3.0, and cybersecurity.

Danny Cohen, General Partner at Viola Ventures stated, “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.”

Founded in 2000, Viola Ventures empowers early-stage start-ups to become global category leaders. The fund manages over $1.25 billion in assets and is part of Viola group, Israel’s leading tech-focused investment firm with over $4 billion assets under management. The Viola Ventures investment team includes Shlomo Dovrat, Avi Zeevi, Daniel Cohen, Omry Ben David, Zvika Orron, Yael Alroy, Itzik Avidor, and Rotem Shacham.