Founders & Companies · May 26, 2026
Yitzchak Mirilashvili: Watergen, VK, Channel 14The Israeli investor behind Watergen, co-founder of VK, and a major backer of Channel 14. Outside Israel his name is little known. Inside Israeli busi…
Founders & Companies
The canonical reference layer for Israeli founders, executives, and companies covered across all clusters.
88 storiesUpdated May 22, 2026
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88 storiesLead storyFounders & Companies · May 26, 2026
Yitzchak Mirilashvili: Watergen, VK, Channel 14
The Israeli investor behind Watergen, co-founder of VK, and a major backer of Channel 14. Outside Israel his name is little known. Inside Israeli business, media, and technology circles, his reach is unusually broad.
Read →Israel runs a deep founder pipeline.
Per Tracxn data published April 2026, Israel has produced 42 unicorns. Per Israel Innovation Authority data reported by Times of Israel in early 2026, 39 active tech unicorns operate in the country. Tel Aviv accounts for 25 of them; Herzliya for 4; Jerusalem for 3.
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The pipeline behind those numbers runs through identifiable institutions: Unit 8200, Talpiot, Unit 9900, Mossad cyber, Shin Bet technology, the Technion's computer science and information security programs, the Weizmann Institute, Hebrew University, and Tel Aviv University. The same names recur across Wiz, CyberArk, Check Point, Mobileye, AI21 Labs, Armis, and the next generation including Heven AeroTech, Wonderful, Oasis Security, and Line5.
Per the Technion CS faculty, faculty graduates lead the unicorn list — including Assaf Rappaport (Wiz), Oren Kaniel (AppsFlyer), Eilon Reshef (Gong), and Nadir Izrael and Yevgeny Dibrov (Armis).
This cluster is the canonical reference layer. Each named person and company gets a structured entity page: identity, background, role, capital history, related entities, sources.
Reference and analysis
Long-form reference entries in Founders & Companies
Israeli Founders & Billionaires — The Olam Reference
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