From: RegTech Analyst
Investor Team8 has unveiled Team8 Capital, a new venture capital vehicle that will be used to back startups looking for seed, Series A and Series B funding.
Liran Grinberg founded Team8 alongside Nadav Zafrir and Israel Grimberg in 2014. The company has since backed companies like Sygnia, Claroty, Illusive Networks, Hysolate and Curv. Among other things, the Israeli venture raised a $85m cybersecurity fund in 2018.
Since the launch, Team8 has pioneered its signature Foundry model to help establish and develop new technology companies by identifying big problems that companies face, ideating novel solutions to solve them and supporting startup progression to success.
Team8 Capital is set out to leverage and extend the resources already put together by Team 8 in the past with backing of strategic investors including Walmart, Microsoft, Cisco, Barclays and Moody’s. Team8’s Foundry model has been set up to help build new companies from scratch.
The in-house technology research group supports technical due diligence and the in-house go-to-market group, alongside the Team8 Village, supports the market validation – providing critical insights for investment decisions. Team8 Capital’s portfolio companies is said to be able to benefit from hundreds of business opportunities created annually, alongside unparalleled access to recruit world-class R&D talent, alumni of Israel’s elite technology and intelligence units such as 8200, leveraging the background of Team8’s founders, including Nadav Zafrir, former commander of 8200.
Actively investing during the Covid-19 crisis, Team8 Capital is funding technologies that have become even more critical to enterprises as they navigate through the crisis and beyond, whereby digital connectivity and trust have become paramount to ensure business continuity.
Sarit Firon, one of Israel’s leading investors, is joining Team8 to lead Team8 Capital. “More than ever before, connectivity and trust in our digital infrastructure are top-of-mind for enterprises as they steer through these unprecedented times,” said Firon. “Leveraging our ability to provide entrepreneurs with deep domain expertise, wealth of company-building experience and real value-add capabilities in go-to-market and talent hiring, Team8 Capital is uniquely positioned to partner with the best founders and help scale the next winners to build our all-digital futures.
“I’m delighted to have partnered with Team8 to launch Team8 Capital at such a critical time and excited to have Liran Grinberg partnering with me, applying his extensive experience building companies out of Team8 and supporting their growth with access to customers and partners worldwide.”
Yuval Shachar, executive chairman and partner of Team8, added, “In today’s world, providing a significant platform team that works for the founders and companies is a unique advantage that helps scale resources, extends deep-skill areas and de-risks go-to-market. Team8’s capabilities, based on deep domain and technology expertise, rich go-to-market and talent hiring ecosystems, coupled with its core experience in scoping and outlining solutions for complex problems, offer an unfair advantage for entrepreneurs as they build their companies to success.”
“Sarit has many years of operational experience navigating startups to success and having picked a long list of winners as an investor, she is already proving to be a big asset to Team8 and we’re delighted to welcome her onboard. Joined by Team8 co-founder Liran, the architect of the Team8 Village and a key contributor to Team8’s company building, I believe we have a team that companies will love working with.”
