Israeli VC Viola Ventures pulls in $250m for early-stage investment fund

Israeli venture capital firm Viola Ventures has closed its sixth fund of $250 million to invest in early-stage Israeli startups focused on areas like fintech, deep tech, digital health, enterprise infrastructure, software, Web 3.0, and cybersecurity, the company announced on Thursday.

Viola said it now has over $1.25 billion in assets under management and will invest in 25-30 new startups with the new fund. The VC firm has backed leading Israeli companies such as fintech firm Payoneer, content creation app company Lightricks, transcription company Verbit, and biotech startup Immunai.

In 2021, Viola said eight of its portfolio companies reached unicorn status, becoming valued at $1 billion or more, amid a bumper year for the Israeli tech industry. Last year, Israeli companies raised over $25 billion in funding with at least 33 companies becoming unicorns.

“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,” said Danny Cohen, general partner at Viola Ventures, in a statement.

Viola Ventures “invested less than 0.5% of the capital deployed in Israel in 2021 and has ~15% of Israel’s total unicorns, ” added Omry Ben David, also a general partner at Viola Ventures. “The Israeli tech ecosystem is definitely evolving. Israeli entrepreneurs have growing aspirations and we are seeing more Israeli companies going public and staying independent, thus controlling their own destiny for longer.”

Based in Tel Aviv, Viola Ventures has invested in close to 90 companies so far including SimilarWeb, Outbrain, Guesty, and Bringg.