A founder starting a raise usually opens a spreadsheet with 80 funds. Dozens of meetings later, they learn most of those funds are not looking for new companies right now. In 2026 only 38.7% of VC deals in Israel are first investments, and the rest goes to companies already in the portfolio.
So we counted who still opens the door. We took the IVC investor reports, ranked funds by how many new companies they backed between January 2025 and June 2026, and checked the result against about 210 rounds reported this year. Behind the numbers we found five stories.
The fund most founders have not heard of
At the top of the list sits fresh.fund, a pre-seed fund run by Zaki Djemal, with 20 new companies in 2025, more than any other fund in Israel. It started out backing only university founders, found there were too few good deals there, and opened its door to first-time founders and founders with unusual backgrounds. Djemal describes their role as "the founding friends and not the fools".
In fifth place is Fusion VC, which works in a completely different way: $150K for 7.5%, a ten-week bootcamp in Tel Aviv and the US, and more than a thousand applications a year. In 2025 it wrote 14 first checks.
The takeaway: At pre-seed, the most active funds are the small ones. Four of the top ten manage less than $200M.
The Team8 factory
Team8 leads the first half of 2026 with 9 new companies, almost twice the next fund, after 10 new companies in 2025. The secret is the model: Team8 builds companies in-house and works with founders before there is a company.
This year's example: two of the founders of Medigate, which Claroty bought for about $400M, came back with Act Security and raised $60M. Team8 and Bessemer led the $20M seed, and Notable Capital led the $40M Series A.
The takeaway: The way into Team8 runs through its network, long before there is a deck.
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Get a fund listThe fund born this year
Deep33 was founded in early 2026 by Lior Prosor and Michael Broukhim. The target was $150M, and they closed $200M. Within six months it backed 5 new companies, including Particle, QuamCore and Seabridge, and it already appears in the IVC ranking of large funds. StageOne also closed a fifth fund of $165M and backed 4 new companies.
Meanwhile, some of the funds that led 2025, including fresh.fund and Fusion, did not appear in the IVC lists for the first half of 2026.
The takeaway: A fund early in its cycle is hunting for deals. Ask every fund when it raised and how much of the fund is already invested.
The deals nobody sees
Gili Raanan's Cyberstarts does not appear in the official ranking at all, and in 2026 news it is named in 15 rounds. The reason: it invests while companies are still in stealth, and IVC counts only companies disclosed by name.
Glow is the sharpest example. A $20M seed led by Sequoia and Cyberstarts, while nobody had heard of the company. Within about a year it came out of stealth with $180M at a $1.2B valuation. Spirit, another Cyberstarts and Sequoia company, was valued at $400M three months after it was founded.
The takeaway: In cyber, the first check is written before the company is known. You reach it through a network of founders who have done it before.
The foreign funds that act like locals
A third of the list is managed outside Israel. Insight Partners and Bessemer each backed 13 to 14 new Israeli companies, and in the second half of 2026 Bessemer appeared in 8 rounds, more than any other fund. In 2026, 448 foreign funds were active in Israel against 210 local ones.
The takeaway: Put a few foreign funds with an Israel partner on your list. They invest here at the pace of a leading local fund.
The full ranking
New companies backed by each fund group, according to IVC. "Not listed" marks a fund that did not appear in the H1 2026 lists. Eight funds share 30th place, so the list holds 37 names.
| Rank | Fund | Type | Total | 2025 | H1 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | fresh.fund | Israeli, mid-sized | 20 | 20 | Not listed |
| 2 | Team8 | Israeli, large | 19 | 10 | 9 |
| 3 | Insight Partners | Foreign | 14 | 9 | 5 |
| 4 | F2 Capital | Israeli, large | 14 | 10 | 4 |
| 5 | Fusion VC | Israeli, micro | 14 | 14 | Not listed |
| 6 | Bessemer Venture Partners | Foreign | 13 | 9 | 4 |
| 7 | VentureIsrael | Israeli, micro | 13 | 11 | 2 |
| 8 | TLV Partners | Israeli, large | 12 | 10 | 2 |
| 9 | Viola | Israeli, large | 10 | 8 | 2 |
| 10 | Remagine Ventures | Israeli, mid-sized | 10 | 9 | 1 |
| 11 | ICI Fund | Foreign | 9 | 5 | 4 |
| 12 | Crescendo Venture Partners | Israeli, mid-sized | 9 | 9 | Not listed |
| 13 | Accel | Foreign | 8 | 5 | 3 |
| 14 | Emerge | Israeli, large | 8 | 6 | 2 |
| 15 | Pitango | Israeli, large | 8 | 6 | 2 |
| 16 | Lightspeed | Foreign | 8 | 8 | Not listed |
| 17 | Hetz Ventures | Israeli, large | 7 | 5 | 2 |
| 18 | 91 Ventures | Israeli, micro | 7 | 5 | 2 |
| 19 | New Era Capital Partners | Israeli, large | 7 | 7 | Not listed |
| 19 | Maccabee Ventures | Foreign | 7 | 7 | Not listed |
| 19 | NFX | Foreign | 7 | 7 | Not listed |
| 19 | Norwest | Foreign | 7 | 7 | Not listed |
| 19 | Redseed | Foreign | 7 | 7 | Not listed |
| 24 | Secret Chord Ventures | Israeli, micro | 6 | 3 | 3 |
| 25 | Cerca Partners | Israeli, large | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| 25 | Key 1 Capital | Israeli, large | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| 27 | Kinetica Ventures | Israeli, mid-sized | 6 | 5 | 1 |
| 27 | Swish Ventures | Israeli, mid-sized | 6 | 5 | 1 |
| 27 | Speed Up (Disruptive Technologies) | Israeli, mid-sized | 6 | 5 | 1 |
| 30 | Earth & Beyond Ventures | Israeli, mid-sized | 6 | 6 | Not listed |
| 30 | AnD Ventures | Israeli, mid-sized | 6 | 6 | Not listed |
| 30 | Grove Ventures | Israeli, large | 6 | 6 | Not listed |
| 30 | OurCrowd | Israeli, large | 6 | 6 | Not listed |
| 30 | Vertex Ventures | Israeli, large | 6 | 6 | Not listed |
| 30 | Corner Ventures | Foreign | 6 | 6 | Not listed |
| 30 | Evolution Equity Partners | Foreign | 6 | 6 | Not listed |
| 30 | Index Ventures | Foreign | 6 | 6 | Not listed |
How we counted
The ranking is based on the IVC investor reports for 2025 and the first half of 2026. IVC counts a first investment in an Israeli or Israeli-related company and groups all funds of one management company together. Stealth companies not yet named are not counted. For H1 2026 IVC published partial lists, so a fund missing from them counts as zero for that half. The news check covers every 2026 round reported by CTech up to November 9 and includes follow-ons.
Sources
- IVC and the Israel Innovation Authority: Investors Report 2025
- IVC and the Israel Innovation Authority: Investors Report H1 2026
- IVC-LeumiTech: Israeli Tech Review Q3 2026
- CTech: Full list of Israeli high-tech funding rounds in 2026
- CTech: The VC aiming to be the "family and friends" of early-stage founders
- Fusion: How it works
- CTech: Medigate founders launch Act Security with $60 million
- Globes: Deep33 closes $200m deep-tech VC fund
- CTech: Glow emerges from stealth with $180 million
- CTech: Spirit valued at $400 million three months after launch