Alicorn Venture Partners Research
Investment Thesis
Alicorn Venture Partners is a London-based, secondary-dominant venture capital firm that blends venture capital funding with private equity techniques. Rather than chasing the earliest-stage lottery-ticket deals, Alicorn buys into growth-stage technology companies through secondaries, bridge rounds, cap-table recycling, and follow-on funding, aiming to unlock liquidity for existing shareholders while injecting fresh growth capital. The firm describes its edge as "focused investment for risk-adjusted returns" — it invests only in verticals its team already knows deeply (cybersecurity, developer infrastructure, fintech/insurance, and deep-tech hardware), rather than spreading generalist bets. Alicorn positions itself explicitly as a hands-on growth partner, not a silent investor, providing operational and go-to-market support alongside capital.
Stage Focus
Alicorn's core thesis targets late-stage, growth companies — priming businesses that have already proven their technology and market for a push toward scale, IPO, or acquisition. The firm is comfortable leading bridge rounds and structuring secondary transactions to give founders and early shareholders liquidity without ceding control. It has occasionally participated in earlier rounds (e.g., a co-investor position in an edtech pre-Series B), but its stated specialty and most of its cited deal flow sit at Series B/C and growth/late stage.
Check Size
Alicorn does not publish a standard check-size range. Deal sizes vary enormously by structure: minority secondary positions in growth-stage companies through to full control transactions — its acquisition and delisting of Glassbox (Tel Aviv Stock Exchange) was a roughly $150M take-private deal completed in November 2024. This suggests the firm can write checks from single-digit millions (co-investments) up to nine-figure control transactions when the situation calls for it.
Lead Tendency
Alicorn's public deal language typically describes it as "backing" companies alongside other investors, consistent with a growth/secondary specialist that often co-invests. However, its approach to secondaries and its full acquisition of Glassbox show it is willing and able to take control positions and lead complex transactions when the opportunity is right. Overall lead tendency is best described as situational — it both leads structured secondary/bridge deals and participates alongside other funds in primary rounds.
Recent Activity
Alicorn has been active through 2025 and into 2026. Most recently it co-invested in Uolo, an Indian AI-powered edtech platform, in a $7M pre-Series B round announced in December 2025 alongside Blume Ventures and Morphosis Venture Capital. In 2025 the firm was also linked to further activity around its portfolio company Glassbox, which separately secured investment from Poalim Equity in August 2025 to expand AI-driven experience analytics. The firm's highest-profile recent transaction remains the complete acquisition and delisting of Glassbox from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, agreed in May 2024 and completed in November 2024 for approximately $150M.
Portfolio Highlights
Alicorn's portfolio spans cybersecurity, developer infrastructure, fintech/insurance, and deep-tech hardware, concentrated heavily in Israeli technology companies with some UK, US, and Indian exposure. Notable exits and milestones include: Axis Security, acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (announced March 2023) to expand HPE's SASE and edge-to-cloud security offering; Codefresh, a Kubernetes-native CI/CD platform acquired by Octopus Deploy; Pliops, a storage-optimization semiconductor company acquired by Astera Labs; and Lemonade, the AI-powered, B-Corp insurance company that completed an IPO on NASDAQ. Glassbox, an AI-driven digital customer experience analytics platform, was fully acquired and taken private by Alicorn itself in 2024. Other active portfolio companies include Anodot (AI-powered business monitoring), Centrical (employee engagement and gamification), Cynet (autonomous cybersecurity platform), Descope (authentication and identity), Eleos Health (AI for behavioral healthcare), Sternum (embedded IoT security), Superlegal (AI-powered legal contract review), TriEye (CMOS-based short-wave infrared sensing), Utila (institutional digital asset custody), Voyantis (AI-powered predictive lifetime-value marketing), Zero Networks (automated microsegmentation), Shopic (AI-powered smart shopping carts), Entrio (AI vendor/technology intelligence), Zesty (autonomous cloud cost optimization), 4M Analytics (AI-powered subsurface utility mapping), and Uolo (AI-powered K-12 edtech in India).
Team
Alicorn's team combines venture investing experience with operational and private-equity turnaround backgrounds:
- Alexander Assim, Managing Partner — has led Alicorn strategies since inception in 2017; previously headed Arowana's London office running an operationally-focused private equity turnaround team; led Alicorn's spin-out from Arowana and the formation of its AGS II fund in 2022; holds 4 active board seats across the portfolio.
- Jonathan Summers, Chairman — former Goldman Sachs managing director (15 years, London and Tokyo), former Head of EMEA Equity Capital and private capital raising; also chairs Deepself.health and sits on the audit committee of NASDAQ-listed SHF Holdings.
- Benjamin Weiss, Partner — founding managing partner of CE Ventures and iVentures Asia (>$100M combined AUM); sole Venture Partner in Israel for SoftBank Ventures Asia; more than 16 portfolio exits including 4 IPOs and acquisitions by Google, Facebook, Snap and Samsung.
- Yair Shoham, IC Partner — 20+ years as a venture investor, formerly Israel Country Manager for Intel Capital and General Partner at Genesis Partners; exits include M-Systems (Nasdaq IPO, sold to SanDisk for $1.55B), Habana Labs (Intel) and Sansa Security (ARM).
- Avi Golan, Operating Partner — 30+ years building and scaling SaaS, AI, and cybersecurity companies; also Chief Strategy Officer at portfolio company Glassbox; former CEO of Oosto and senior roles at SoftBank Vision Fund, Google, and Intuit.
- Ariella Young, Principal — former lawyer turned venture investor focused on secondaries, fund allocation, and family-office/institutional LP partnerships.
- Bart Engelander, Principal — leads Alicorn's Build due-diligence team for follow-on investments and secondaries; former Arowana private equity turnaround executive.
- Hector Judd, Principal — leads Alicorn's Seed due-diligence team assessing new portfolio investments across the firm's core thematics.
- Ishay Yaari, Operating Principal — former CRO at Cloudify (acquired by Dell in 2023); operational go-to-market and revenue-generation background.
- Noam Enk, Operating Principal — 13+ years across M&A, principal investments, and strategic operations; former Group COO at Stanhope Capital Group.
- Hyun Suh, Associate — former EY valuation/financial modelling specialist with cross-border M&A experience; earlier career at Microsoft and Amazon.
Decision Process
Alicorn operates a partnership/investment-committee model: dedicated Seed and Build due-diligence teams (led by Hector Judd and Bart Engelander respectively) screen new investments and follow-on/secondary opportunities, with Yair Shoham serving as IC Partner and Jonathan Summers chairing the firm.
Founder Preferences
Alicorn backs "confident leaders" running growth-stage businesses in verticals the team knows well, favoring situations where founders want to stay in control while accessing liquidity and growth capital rather than ceding the company outright — its stated aim is to "keep leaders in control."
Geographic Focus
Alicorn is headquartered in London, UK, and is an Appointed Representative of Suntera Advisers (UK) Limited, regulated by the FCA. Its portfolio is concentrated in Israeli technology companies, with additional exposure to the UK, wider Europe, the US, and — via its recent Uolo investment — India.