TLV Partners raises $320M to invest in early-stage Israeli startups
Israeli VC firm launches fourth fund of $220M to back new ventures and additional $100M initiative to support portfolio companies and founders
Ricky Ben-David is a Times of Israel editor and reporter
Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm TLV Partners announced on Sunday that it has raised $320 million in new funds to invest in innovative early-stage Israeli startups.
The sum includes $220 million for the company’s fourth fund, TLV Partners IV, to back new startups and a fund of $100 million, dubbed TLV Opportunity, to support existing portfolio companies and their founders “deeper into their journey.”
TLV Partners was founded in 2016 by entrepreneurs and venture capitalists Rona Segev and Eitan Bek, formerly with Israeli VC firm Pitango. They are joined by Shahar Tzafrir, previously with Magma Venture Partners, as managing partners, and Adi Yarel-Toledano, also formerly with Magma, as partner and chief financial officer.
The firm announced its first fund of $110 million in 2016, followed by a $150 million fund in 2018 and a third fund of the same amount in 2020. Added to that third fund was a $60 million growth fund for existing founders.
TLV Partners currently has assets under management totaling over $800 million and has invested in at least 45 Israeli companies focused on fintech, deep tech, healthcare, cybersecurity, e-commerce, and property tech.
Its portfolio companies include Israeli AI medical imaging company Aidoc, insuretech firm Next Insurance, data tech startup Datagen, and Quantum Machines, the developer of a standard universal language for quantum computers as well as a unique platform that helps them run.
The Israeli VC company specializes in early-stage investments (seed or Series A) of between $2-$8 million, but says that it reserves up to $15 million to invest over a given startup’s lifetime.
Segev told The Times of Israel in a phone interview that with the fourth fund, TLV Partners “plans to continue doing exactly what we are doing right now, and that is investing in seed to A [rounds] in companies in areas like infrastructure, fintech, mostly B2B [business-to-business] companies, and continue to dominate the seed [investing] market in Israel.”
Segev explained that the opportunity funds for existing portfolio companies and founders were initiated because “many of the companies grow very, very quickly, and we want to continue to support them.”
“The strategy is to become long-time partners for founders, and it is another pool of funds [from which to draw] as companies mature,” she added.
Tzafrir wrote in a blog post on Sunday that the TLV Partners’ was “lucky to have backed over 45 companies and over 100 incredible founders, who will remain our number one priority.”
An annual report by the IVC Research Center and Israeli law firm APM & Co. named TLV Partners, along with Vertex Israel, as the most active venture capital funds in Israel in 2018.
