97212 Ventures, a NY next-generation VC and day-one partner for Israeli founders, announced the closing of a $20 million fund focused on investing in new Israeli pre-seed and seed startups, providing them instant access to a pool of rich New York resources to grow their businesses including key senior advisors, early customers and channel partners, paving the way to US product-market fit and early growth.
New York also established itself as a hub for Israeli tech, with 30 Israeli unicorns and 450 startups based in the city.
97212’s founder Eyal Bino has played a key role in the creation of this hub, having previously co-founded ICONYC labs (a go-to-market accelerator focused on investing in pre-seed Israeli startups that helped reduce time to access the US market). ICONYC’s success stories include Connecteam, Dataloop, Leal Health, Duve, SecuriThings, Copyleaks and many more.
97212 Ventures is a first-time fund dedicated to providing capital for Israeli startups to establish a presence in NYC and requires founders to move there within 18 months. And the firm invests in B2B enterprise technologies, digital health and wellness, plus sectors where digital transformation tech is critical such as fintech, prop tech and logistics. The fund has already invested in 14 startups including:
1.) Remepy: a pioneering hybrid drug company co-founded by Michal Tsur, (former President of Kaltura) and Or Shoval. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who made his name as a hugely successful tech founder, is a key advisor to the company.
2.) Beti: a cloud-based platform designed to enable construction companies to efficiently supervise and coordinate workflows and worker safety on site
3.) Ritual: a company offering digital tools to guide users through their personalized relationship journeys with on-demand therapists.
97212 Ventures is backed by a collection of successful investors, founders and operators such as Modi Rosen, Co-founder / Managing Partner, Magma Ventures and first investor in Waze, Appsflyer, Guesty amongst other Israeli unicorns; Owen Davis, Managing Partner, Contour Ventures and first investor in successful NYC startups Datadog and SeatGeek; Paul Martino, Managing Partner, Bullpen Capital, and first investor in FanDuel, and Ran Reske, Founder and CEO of Resident (recently sold for $1 billion), among others.
KEY QUOTE:
“Israel has unique tech talent and this moment, when securing venture capital funding is particularly tough for early stage startups in Israel, offers unique opportunities for us to access top innovations that have the potential to become unicorns. This new fund serves as a complete plug-in for Israeli entrepreneurs looking to build global startups by giving them capital, guidance and instant access to the entire NYC tech ecosystem including senior advisors, design partners, potential partners, and customer introductions.”
– Eyal Bino, Founding Partner
