Active Seed Investors in Israel
Part of our mission at Ground Up Ventures is to make the process of raising a first round of institutional funding less painful and more transparent for pre-seed and seed stage startups. Not every company is a great fit for every investor and not every investor is a great fit for every company. For most founders, fundraising is a difficult, time-consuming process, and the challenge begins with creating a list of relevant investors to approach.
A lot of first-time founders we meet don’t know where to start, and even the experienced entrepreneurs are not necessarily familiar with the new crop of seed funds that have emerged over the past few years.
In the U.S. there are a bunch of people and companies that track active seed investors to help make this easier for founders (like this list from Shai Goldman). Our team in Israel, however, felt that someone needed to pick up where Eden Shochat’s spreadsheet of Israeli angels left off and keep a curated list of the Israeli funds that are actively investing in seed stage companies.
The two most frustrating things for a founder to hear after pitching VCs are:
(1) you are too early for us
(2) we don’t have the money right now to make new investments
These are much worse than hearing “no” because they mean that the meeting was a waste of time and should have been avoided in the first place due to lack of fit. To help founders avoid this, our criteria for this list was funds with a local presence in Israel who are actively investing in pre-seed and seed stage companies. These funds have the capital to deploy and — like Ground Up — have the risk-appetite to invest in great people at the very beginning of their journey.
This market map is by no means comprehensive. For example, it does not include incubators or the numerous large, multi-stage funds with a presence in Israel for whom seed investing is not core to what they do but that do occasionally invest in seed-stage companies as part of a seed program or as an exception for a proven serial entrepreneur.
It is a great time to be a founder raising seed money. Navigating your way to the right investor for you and your business, though, can be hard. We are here to help — as a fund that was built from day one on the principle of collaboration over competition, we have a good sense of what different funds are looking for and regularly share deal flow with other relevant investors. We have already co-invested with four funds on this list and look forward to working together with many more!
Note: Please send comments or additions for the tracking sheet to me at jordan@groundup.vc.
Other great resources for finding lists of Israeli firms that invest at various stages are Startup Nation Central and Signal.
Ground Up Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm based in Israel and New York City. We want to be your first investor. It’s never too early to start a conversation, but it might be too late! Get in touch with us here.
