A Look Back at 2024 with Hetz Ventures
In all facets of life in Israel - personal, community, industry - it is an understatement to say that 2024 was challenging in ways we would have never expected five quarters ago.
But in typical Israeli fashion, the tech ecosystem has borne the weight of the relevant challenges - earlier on, startup founders, employees and investors were called into military reserves, team mates worked hard to keep up the pace, and spouses and families carried the burden at home. We’ve all felt the industry challenges, and the good news is, we exit this year with more stability in the tech scene and more hope and broader opportunity on the horizon.
For Hetz Ventures, we looked both internally and externally to continue supporting our portfolio, working with our executive network and sourcing new investments. The following is a time capsule of what we learned and gained in 2024.
Taking the Hetz Executive Network on the road
From Tel Aviv to London, NYC, San Francisco and Las Vegas, we took to the road (and also some virtual meetups) to gather and connect our executive network and portfolio. The energy and enthusiasm was a reminder that despite challenging times, the desire and motivation to work with Israeli startups is strong as ever.
Stops along the way include:
- CyberTech Cocktail with Evolution Equity Partners, DCTP, Elron Ventures and Hetz
- CISO-Founder Reception at RSA with Hetz, Scale Venture Partners, Dell Technologies Capital and AWS
- Founder Breakfast with Hetz & Primary Ventures
- CISO Dinner at BlackHat with Hetz & Lightspeed Venture Partners
- Annual VC & Tech Breakfast at AWS Re:invent with Hetz & Scale Venture Partners
This was also the year we launched the Startup Showcase, featuring Israeli cyber and data companies in an intimate setting with senior decision makers across cybersecurity, engineering and R&D and data/AI teams. Showcases took place on both the east and west coasts, and facilitated discussions, feedback and introductions for Hetz portfolio companies while offering insight and deeper looks into trends for Hetz executive network members.
Doubling down on data at Hetz
This year, Hetz continued to build and expand our Data Program, with several new investments and value creation efforts throughout 2024. More than anything, we hit the road with our data startups, landing in New York City, San Francisco and London, meeting with the Data Network and spending time at Snowflake Summit, Databricks’ Data + AI Summit and BigData London. Head of the Hetz Data Program, Guy Fighel, gave a keynote at Big Data London, and hosted several meetups for the data community.
Plus, as a collaborative effort with Yoni Steinmetz, a Data Advisor in the Hetz Data Program, and several other prominent figures in the Israeli data space, we launched and populated The Israel Data Stack, a directory of Israeli data startups at various stages. The goal is to make sure data leaders around the world are aware of the Israeli tech being developed, present information about available companies and products, and make it easier for them to help support and further the data industry with their partnership.
Celebrating portfolio growth and wins
In April, Silk Security was acquired by cyber unicorn Armis for $150M, making it a major success story for Hetz in our cybersecurity portfolio.
We invested in 7 new companies across cybersecurity and AI/data verticals, and doubled down on many others, including Prompt Security, which raised their $18M Series A.
It’s no wonder Hetz Ventures was named among the most active investors in IVC’s H1 report.
Portfolio companies continued to top charts and make news, especially in our cybersecurity and AI portfolios:
- Blink Ops was named a top cybersecurity company over and over again.
- Gomboc made headway as a startup to watch and joined Google for Startups: AI in Cyber.
- Prompt Security included as most promising startup by Calcalist and N12, featured by Gartner, and introduced in TechCrunch.
- Deepchecks was integrated into AWS’ SageMaker with their LLm Evaluation platform.
- Lama AI was named a top startup by Fintech Innovation 50.
- Superduper has been working with Snowflake in their accelerator for AI and data apps, and is now featured as a fast-growing startup powered by Snowflake.
- Tabnine didn’t stop announcing new features, while picking up VentureBeat’s AI Innovation Award.
- Tymely won top startup honors at Innovation Village Retail for its AI customer service tech.
Supporting the North and beyond
Throughout the year, the team spent time volunteering time, expertise and funds to support local efforts throughout the country. Last month, we brought the North to Tel Aviv with the 'Taste of the North' pop up event, featuring and supporting products and vendors based on the northern front (Lueria Winery, Naveh Wine by Chateau Golan, קקאו הגליל גדיא גבינות).
Looking ahead at 2025
Amidst the building and recovering, it’s also a time for cautious optimism. At Hetz we are looking forward to continuing to expand our global network of hands-on executives, to support our portfolio with full steam, and invest in the best data/AI, infrastructure, cybersecurity and engineering SaaS companies.
Interested in working together this year? Follow along and get in touch.
