Team8 Launches New Venture Capital Arm to Invest in Cyber Startups

Team8 Capital's portfolio companies are expected 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

Team8 Launches New Venture Capital Arm to Invest in Cyber Startups

Sarit Firon, managing partner, Team8 Capital. Photo: Team8

Team8, a leading company-building venture group, announced June 3 the launch of Team8 Capital, a new venture capital vehicle leading investments in enterprise technology startups across various domains with a focus on data, AI and cybersecurity. 

Team8 Capital will invest at Seed, A and B rounds of funding, expanding on Team8's Foundry model that builds new companies from scratch. One of Israel's leading investors, Sarit Firon joins Team8 as Managing Partner of Team8 Capital and will be joined by Managing Partner and Team8 co-founder, Liran Grinberg.

Backed by strategic investors including Walmart, Microsoft, Cisco, Barclays and Moody's, among others, Team8 has pioneered a signature Foundry model of creating new technology companies by identifying big problems that companies face, ideating novel solutions to solve them and supporting startup progression to success. 

Facilitating the Foundry, Team8 employs an in-house team of forty company-builders across its New York and Tel-Aviv headquarters, including domain experts, researchers, ideators, marketers, business developers and talent recruiters. The group has also formed the 'Team8 Village', a community comprising hundreds of C-level executives from leading global corporates who undertake an active role in Team8's company-building process, from identifying enterprise challenges to developing the solution thesis and contributing as design and business partners.

Team8 Capital leverages and extends these resources for developing its investment thesis and conducting due diligence of prospect investments. Specifically, 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 will 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.

"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 Sarit 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."