Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP): Erel Margalit and Israel's Oldest Institutional Fund
JVP is the Israeli VC founded 1993 by Erel Margalit — one of the oldest continuously operating Israeli venture platforms. Jerusalem-anchored. CyberArk to Palo Alto Networks $25B Feb 2026. Cybereason, Qumulo portfolio. Margalit's parallel Labor Party Knesset career.
Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) is the Israeli venture capital firm founded in 1993 by Erel Margalit — making it one of the oldest institutional Israeli venture platforms operating continuously since the country's venture market first formed. JVP invests across cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, storage and data infrastructure, food-tech, and adjacent categories, with a distinctive operating thesis anchored on portfolio-company clustering inside the JVP Media Quarter in Jerusalem. Margalit's parallel political career — as a Labor Party Knesset member and long-standing public figure in Israeli political and economic policy — has produced a firm that operates simultaneously as a conventional venture platform and as a public-policy-adjacent institutional actor. Notable portfolio outcomes include CyberArk (Nasdaq: CYBR, acquired by Palo Alto Networks in February 2026 for $25 billion), Cybereason, Qumulo, and QuantumLeap.
Erel Margalit as founder and public figure
Erel Margalit founded JVP in 1993 in Jerusalem with a thesis that Israeli venture capital could be built from Jerusalem rather than from Tel Aviv or Herzliya. The choice was structural, not incidental — Margalit built JVP alongside a broader project of Jerusalem-anchored economic and cultural development, including the JVP Media Quarter, the JVP Cyber Labs, and the broader institutional presence he has maintained in the city.
Margalit's political career has run parallel to the JVP venture business. He served as a Labor Party Knesset member and has been a substantial figure in Israeli center-left political and economic policy for more than two decades. The combined venture-and-political public profile is unusual among Israeli institutional venture principals and has shaped the firm's operating posture toward government-adjacent categories — defense-tech, national infrastructure, and cybersecurity policy work — more than most private-only Israeli venture firms.
The CyberArk outcome
CyberArk (Nasdaq: CYBR), the privileged-access-management platform founded by Udi Mokady in 1999 and listed on Nasdaq in 2014, was one of JVP's earliest and most consequential portfolio positions. CyberArk grew from JVP-anchored seed and early-stage capital into one of the largest Israeli listed cybersecurity companies, and in February 2026 was acquired by Palo Alto Networks for approximately $25 billion — one of the two largest single Israeli cybersecurity exits in the country's history (alongside Google Cloud's $32 billion Wiz acquisition the following month).
The CyberArk exit validated JVP's early institutional support for Mokady's founding vision and closed a portfolio arc that had run for more than two decades.
Investment thesis and portfolio
JVP invests across cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, storage and data infrastructure, food-tech, and adjacent categories. The firm has been particularly active in cyber — where the CyberArk and Cybereason positions anchor the portfolio — and in food-tech, where JVP has anchored the emerging Israeli alternative-protein and food-technology cluster.
Portfolio companies include CyberArk, Cybereason, Qumulo, QuantumLeap, and additional Israeli-founded operators across the JVP thesis categories. The firm operates multiple funds and cluster-specific vehicles, including the JVP Cyber Labs incubator and the JVP food-tech operating layer.
The Jerusalem cluster
JVP's operating model is unusual for Israeli venture in that a substantial portion of the portfolio operates from JVP-anchored facilities in Jerusalem — the JVP Media Quarter, the JVP Cyber Labs building, and the broader institutional infrastructure Margalit has built in the city. The clustering model provides portfolio companies with shared operating infrastructure, cross-portfolio operating relationships, and proximity to the JVP partnership. The model is one of the more architecturally distinctive operating structures in Israeli venture.
Position in the Israeli venture cluster
JVP sits inside the small group of institutionally oldest Israeli venture firms alongside Pitango (the other principal 1990s-founded domestic institutional fund). JVP's differentiation is the Jerusalem anchoring, the Margalit political-and-public-policy dimension, and the cluster operating model. Among the Israeli institutional venture layer, JVP is the fund most institutionally embedded inside Jerusalem's economic and cultural infrastructure.
Primary Sources
JVP corporate communications; Erel Margalit public communications and Knesset service records; CyberArk-Palo Alto Networks acquisition disclosures (February 2026); portfolio company transaction records.
