10D Research
Investment Thesis
10D is a Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm founded in 2018 by Rotem Eldar and Yahal Zilka, both 20+ year veterans of the Israeli VC industry (formerly of Gemini Israel Ventures and Magma Venture Partners respectively). The firm's name reflects its thesis: it backs entrepreneurs who "transcend the constraints of space and time," looking beyond a company's current state to what it is capable of becoming. 10D frames itself as a hands-on, non-Israeli-market-restricted partner that provides operational support (talent, business development, follow-on fundraising) alongside capital, while explicitly avoiding micromanagement ("Hands-on/Ego Off"). The firm also emphasizes diversity-conscious investing, seeking founders from varied backgrounds.
Sector Focus
10D is a generalist, deep-tech-leaning early-stage fund investing across:
- Cybersecurity (Huskeys, Blast Security, Argus Cyber Security)
- Deep tech / quantum / semiconductors (Quantum Source, Quantum Transistors, CoreTigo, Innoviz Technologies)
- Defense and space (Senai, Remondo)
- Digital health (Cassidy Bio, C8 Health, MedOrion, OneStep, Aidoc)
- Enterprise SaaS and data infrastructure (WEKA, DriveNets, Euno, Juno Journey)
- Fintech (Zorro, Obligo)
- Industry 4.0 / digital transformation (Augury, Exodigo, qbiq, Seebo, bananaz)
- Robotics (Mentee Robotics)
The common thread is Israeli-founded, technically differentiated teams targeting large market opportunities rather than a single vertical.
Stage Focus
10D invests at the early stage — pre-seed through Series A — as the first institutional or an early institutional check, per its own positioning ("investing in exceptional early stage Israeli entrepreneurs") and third-party investor databases (OpenVC, Capboard).
Check Size
Third-party sources (OpenVC, Capboard) put typical check size at $500K–$5M. 10D also plays an active role engineering later rounds and bringing in follow-on investors, rather than always being the primary source of growth capital.
Lead Tendency
Not explicitly disclosed on the site. The firm describes itself as an active board-level partner ("we engineer the rounds, connect our companies to the right investors") across a broad range of deal sizes, consistent with a mixed lead/follow posture.
Recent Activity
10D has been active through 2025–2026 across its current portfolio:
- September 2026: Huskeys raised a $27M Series A (cybersecurity/edge security)
- May 2026: Vortex Imaging raised $12M
- February 2026: SENAI raised $6.2M seed (video-threat intelligence)
- December 2025: Safebooks AI raised $15M (agentic revenue management)
- November 2025: Blast Security raised a $10M seed (preemptive cloud defense)
The firm also promoted Emmanuelle Lipski to Partner in February 2026, and portfolio company Mentee Robotics was acquired in a deal reported at $900M (per 10D's own January 2026 blog post), a notable outcome for a hardware/robotics bet.
Portfolio Highlights
Current unicorns in the portfolio include WEKA (AI data platform), DriveNets (disaggregated networking) and Augury (industrial machine health). Historic exits from 10D's team's broader track record (largely pre-dating the 2018 fund, drawn from partners' earlier funds and referenced on the portfolio page as "previous investment history") include Waze and Moovit (both acquired, Google/Intel), WalkMe, Innoviz Technologies, Hola VPN and Valens (all IPO'd), and Implisit (acquired by Salesforce). Mentee Robotics' 2026 acquisition (~$900M, per the firm's own account) is the most notable recent exit tied directly to 10D's current fund.
Team
- Rotem Eldar, Managing Partner — Co-founder; ex-Partner at Gemini Israel Ventures; board seats at WalkMe, Minute Media, Implisit, Moovit; Talpiot and IDF Unit 81 alum.
- Yahal Zilka, Managing Partner — Co-founder; ex-Co-founder/Managing Partner at Magma Venture Partners; board/advisor roles at Waze, Argus, Magisto, Indegy and others through their acquisitions; former CFO of VocalTec.
- Itay Rand, General Partner — Prior investing experience at 83North and Founders Group; ex-BCG consultant.
- Alon Kantor, Partner — Co-founded and was CEO of defense-tech startup Toka; 20 years at Check Point.
- Emmanuelle Lipski, Partner — Promoted Feb 2026; ex-McKinsey, healthcare-focused engagement manager.
- Raz Ofir, CFO — Finance leadership roles at Tirgo and 83North.
- Additional platform/IR/operations staff: Talia Saar (VP Platform), Rebecca Kazhdan (VP Investor Relations), Lior Harel (IR Associate), Oded Hollander (Deal Flow Manager), Valeria Beynish (Office Manager).
Decision Process
Multi-partner structure (2 Managing Partners, 1 General Partner, 2 Partners) suggests a partnership-style decision process rather than a single decision-maker; the site's messaging ("when you partner with 10D, you partner with our entire team") reinforces a collegial, whole-team investment approach.
Founder Preferences
10D explicitly targets "exceptional early stage Israeli entrepreneurs" building "category disrupting companies with unique business models and leading technologies." The firm states a preference for diverse founding teams and technical/deep-tech differentiation over incremental SaaS plays.
Geographic Focus
Israel-centric: the firm is headquartered in Tel Aviv and every named portfolio company is an Israeli-founded startup, though several (WEKA, DriveNets, Augury) have scaled global commercial operations.