YL Ventures, a Tel Aviv, Israel-and NYC- and San Francisco, CA-based early-stage, cybersecurity-focused venture capital firm, closed its fifth fund, at $400M.
YLV V, which brings total capital under management to $800M, will continue the firm’s strategy of supporting Israeli founders from inception through every critical stage of building a category-leading company and bolstering its position in the global market.
The fund will be used to both lead the seed rounds of approximately 10 startups at a pace of 3 startups per year, and to invest in the companies’ follow-on rounds.
Led by Managing Partner Yoav Leitersdorf, Senior Partner Ofer Schreiber, Senior Partner John Brennan and newly promoted Partner (Marketing) Sharon Seemann and Partner Michael Cortez, YL also complements its founders’ technological abilities with a wide range of critical services across every operational domain of company-building. This value-add support begins as early as the founders’ ideation phase and continues through market research and validation, access to potential customers and business development, marketing, GTM, HR, finance and operations.
The firm’s support of its portfolio companies extends beyond its core team with access to a large cybersecurity network and a Venture Advisory Board of over 115 Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and senior executives. These veterans, coming from Fortune 500 companies such as Google, Airbnb, Microsoft, Amazon, Crowdstrike, Reddit, Intuit and General Atlantic, provide portfolio companies with customer insights and take an active role in pre- and post-investment processes.
The firm’s track record includes cybersecurity unicorns Axonius and Orca Security, along with several high-profile portfolio company acquisitions by major corporations including Twistlock (acquired by Palo Alto Networks), Medigate (acquired by Softbank-backed Claroty), Hexadite (acquired by Microsoft) and FireLayers (acquired by Proofpoint).
The current portfolio includes Orca Security (agentless cloud security and compliance), Hunters (SOC platform for identification and response), Cycode (software supply chain security), Vulcan Cyber (cyber risk management platform), Satori (DataSecOps platform), Grip Security (SaaS Security Management), Enso Security (Application Security Posture Management), Valence Security (SaaS-to-SaaS Supply Chain Security), Piiano (Data Privacy and Security Engineering Infrastructure), Eureka Security (Cloud Data Security Posture), Karamba Security (end-to-end protection for connected devices), and Ride Vision.
FinSMEs
10/05/2022