Cyberstarts: The Cyber-Only Israeli VC Behind Wiz
Cyberstarts is the cyber-only Israeli VC founded 2018 by Gili Raanan. Led Wiz's 2020 seed round; Wiz sold to Google Cloud for $32B in March 2026 — the largest Israeli tech exit ever. Deliberately small. CISO-network model at seed stage.
Cyberstarts is the cyber-only Israeli venture fund founded in 2018 by Gili Raanan — the former Sanctum and NetSuite executive — that produced the most consequential single portfolio outcome in Israeli venture history: the $32 billion Google Cloud acquisition of Wiz in March 2026. Cyberstarts invests exclusively in Israeli cybersecurity companies at pre-seed and seed stage, with an operating thesis anchored on the CISO network Raanan built as a Sequoia venture partner and independent operator across the 2010s. The firm has stayed deliberately small, avoided the multi-vertical expansion that most institutional venture platforms pursue, and produced returns that are almost without parallel in the country's venture history.
The Raanan founder story
Gili Raanan is a former Israeli cybersecurity operator whose pre-Cyberstarts arc spans two of the most consequential Israeli cyber operating stories of the pre-2010s cycle. Raanan founded Sanctum in 1997 — one of the earliest web application firewall companies — which he built through the late-1990s cyber cycle and eventually sold to Watchfire (later acquired by IBM). He subsequently joined NetSuite as an operator and served as a venture partner at Sequoia Capital through the 2010s, where he anchored a substantial portion of Sequoia's Israeli cyber investment activity.
The Cyberstarts founding thesis in 2018 was that Israeli cybersecurity had become deep enough as a category to sustain a dedicated cyber-only venture fund, and that the CISO network Raanan had built over two decades of operating and investing was durable enough to serve as the operating spine of a new firm.
The Wiz outcome
Wiz — the cloud security company founded in 2020 by former Adallom operators Assaf Rappaport, Yinon Costica, Roy Reznik, and Ami Luttwak — was the Cyberstarts thesis executed in a single portfolio company. Cyberstarts led Wiz's seed round in 2020. Wiz grew from seed to $32 billion Google Cloud acquisition in March 2026 in less than six years — the largest single Israeli technology exit in the country's history and one of the largest venture returns of any single-portfolio outcome globally.
The Wiz return validated the Cyberstarts model in a way that is difficult to overstate. A cyber-only fund founded in 2018 produced the largest Israeli exit of all time in its portfolio within eight years of founding. The result reshaped the competitive positioning of Cyberstarts inside the Israeli venture market and established Raanan as one of the most consequential individual venture investors in Israeli cybersecurity.
The CISO network model
The Cyberstarts operating thesis is anchored on the CISO advisory network Raanan built through his Sanctum, Sequoia, and independent operating years. Portfolio companies gain structured access to the network for product development, first-customer conversations, and category positioning. The commercial value the network provides is analogous to what Team8 offers its portfolio, but Cyberstarts operates the model at seed stage rather than at the build-and-invest stage.
The CISO network is what allows Cyberstarts to compress the customer-development cycle for early-stage cybersecurity companies. Portfolio companies reach enterprise buyer conversations in months rather than years, and the buyer feedback shapes the product roadmap from the earliest stages of company life.
Portfolio and thesis exposure
Cyberstarts' portfolio is concentrated in Israeli cybersecurity. Wiz is the defining outcome. Other portfolio companies include cyber operators across cloud security, identity, application security, and adjacent categories. The firm's thesis exposure is deliberately narrow — cyber only — and the operational discipline of that focus is one of the reasons the fund has produced returns at scale.
The Israeli cyber cluster position
Cyberstarts sits inside the small group of dedicated cyber-anchored Israeli venture platforms alongside Team8, YL Ventures, and Glilot Capital. Within that group, Cyberstarts operates at the earliest stage (pre-seed and seed), holds the narrowest thesis (cyber only), and — following the Wiz outcome — carries the highest single-portfolio return in the country's venture history. The fund's operating posture has remained deliberately understated even after the Wiz exit; there has been no substantial fund-size expansion, no vertical extension beyond cyber, and no shift in the small-team operating model.
Primary Sources
Cyberstarts corporate communications; Wiz-Google Cloud acquisition announcement (March 2026); Gili Raanan Sanctum and Sequoia Capital public disclosures; Assaf Rappaport Wiz founder communications.
