- Israel-based startup accelerator Team8 announced it is launching a VC arm. These are the details.
Team8, an Israel-based cybersecurity incubator, announced that it is launching a new venture capital arm. Sarit Firon is going to head up the VC arm as a co-managing partner of Team8 Capital along with Team8 co-founder Liran Grinberg.
The new fund has already raised $104 million in commitments, according to an April filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) via Calcalist.
Team8 Capital is going to lead seed, Series A, and Series B rounds for startups and the firm is going to work in the fields of data, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and enterprise technologies.
“More than ever before, connectivity and trust in our digital infrastructure are top-of-mind for enterprises as they steer through these unprecedented times,” said Firon. “Leveraging our ability to provide entrepreneurs with deep domain expertise, wealth of company-building experience, and real value-add capabilities in go-to-market and talent hiring, Team8 Capital is uniquely positioned to partner with the best founders and help scale the next winners to build our all-digital futures. I’m delighted to have partnered with Team8 to launch Team8 Capital at such a critical time and excited to have Liran Grinberg partnering with me, applying his extensive experience building companies out of Team8 and supporting their growth with access to customers and partners worldwide”.
Team8 is known as being a cybersecurity incubator and startup foundry headed by Nadav Zafrir — who is the former chief of Unit 8200. Unit 8200 is the NSA equivalent of the Israeli military.
Going forward, Team8’s foundry will continue to establish companies that will operate under its umbrella and they will use the new fund to the companies.
During her career, Firon oversaw several exits and IPOs that amounted to a total of more than $4 billion. Firon held the role of CFO at MediaMind when it went public on the Nasdaq and later sold to online ad company Sizmek.com. Firon also served as CFO at P-Cube when it was acquired by Cisco Systems and at Radcom Ltd. when it listed on Nasdaq.
Firon led the seed round of marketing analytics company Datorama and played a major role in its sale to Salesforce in 2018. Working as a partner at Cerca Partners, Firon oversaw investments in several companies that were acquired or went public such as Armis (acquired by Insight Partners), Alooma (acquired by Google), Demisto (acquired by Palo Alto Networks), Dynamic Yield (acquired by McDonald’s), and Fiverr (IPO).
Grinberg, Zafrir, and Israel Grimberg launched Team8 in 2014. Some of the companies that emerged from Team8 include Sygnia (acquired by Temasek Holdings), Claroty, Illusive Networks, Hysolate, and Curv.
“In today’s world, providing a significant platform team that works for the founders and companies is a unique advantage that helps scale resources, extends deep-skill areas and de-risks go-to-market. Team8’s capabilities, based on deep domain and technology expertise, rich go-to-market and talent hiring ecosystems, coupled with its core experience in scoping and outlining solutions for complex problems, offer an unfair advantage for entrepreneurs as they build their companies to success”, added Yuval Shachar, Executive Chairman and Partner of Team8. “Sarit has many years of operational experience navigating startups to success and having picked a long list of winners as an investor, she is already proving to be a big asset to Team8 and we’re delighted to welcome her onboard. Joined by Team8 co-founder Liran, the architect of the Team8 Village and a key contributor to Team8’s company building, I believe we have a team that companies will love working with”.
