Team8 Research
Investment Thesis
Team8 calls its approach "success by design": rather than betting on ideas as they arrive, the firm systematically identifies large, structural problems in cybersecurity, software infrastructure, fintech, and digital health, then either builds companies from scratch (venture creation) or backs founders already attacking those problems (venture capital). Founded in Tel Aviv in 2014 by veterans of Israel's elite intelligence units, Team8 pairs domain expertise (former CISOs, bank executives, hospital operators, government cyber officials) with capital and hands-on company building. The firm runs a "village" of 900+ members and 90+ platform experts who validate theses, pressure-test go-to-market plans, and become design partners and customers for portfolio companies before they raise a Series A.
Stage Focus
Team8 spans the earliest possible stage through growth. Its venture-creation arm works with founders from pre-idea, writing the first checks and building founding teams internally. Its venture-capital arm then leads or co-leads seed and Series A rounds for external founders solving problems inside its four domains, with selective growth-stage follow-on into portfolio winners (e.g., Claroty, which became a unicorn roughly three years after Team8's initial check).
Check Size
Not explicitly published. Observed round sizes where Team8 led or co-led in 2026 range from ~$17M seed rounds (BAND, Solid) to $35-61M seed/Series A rounds (Astelia, Jazz, Fig Security, Act Security), suggesting typical initial commitments in the $2M-$20M range with meaningful reserve for follow-ons, consistent with a $1.5B AUM platform.
Lead Tendency
Team8 leads or co-leads the substantial majority of its recent deals: it led Astelia's $35M Series A, Fig Security's stealth round (with Ten Eleven Ventures), Dimer Health's $13.5M Series A (with Bill Ackman's Table Management), Solid's $20M seed (with SignalFire), and Act Security's $20M seed (with Bessemer). It participated alongside Glilot Capital Partners in Jazz's $61M raise. This is consistent with its venture-creation DNA: Team8 is rarely a passive follower.
Recent Activity
Team8 has been highly active through 2026, closing new rounds nearly every month:
- July 2026: Encore AI (formerly Insait IO) raised a $30M Series A led by Team8, Planven, and The Garage to build AI agents that learn from customer conversations.
- July 2026: Act Security exited stealth with $60M total ($20M seed led by Team8 and Bessemer, $40M Series A led by Notable Capital) for agentic cloud access security.
- May 2026: Tribal, an enterprise-native AI agent platform for Salesforce and beyond, became Team8's latest disclosed investment.
- March 2026: Jazz emerged from stealth with $61M for AI-powered data loss prevention (led by Glilot Capital Partners and Team8).
- March 2026: Fig Security emerged from stealth with $38M for SecOps resilience (led by Team8 and Ten Eleven Ventures).
- March 2026: Dimer Health closed a $13.5M Series A for AI-native post-discharge care (led by Team8 and Table Management).
- February 2026: Astelia raised a $35M Series A for AI-native exposure management (led by Team8).
- February 2026: Solid launched with $20M in seed funding for enterprise "semantic engineering" (led by Team8 and SignalFire).
Fund status: actively deploying. Team8's most recent disclosed capital raise was a $500M close across its fifth, sixth, and seventh funds (announced March 2024), pushing total AUM to roughly $1.5B as of 2026.
Portfolio Highlights
Team8 has built or backed 60+ companies since 2014, with 13+ new investments in the trailing 12 months as of mid-2026. Notable exits include Talon Cyber Security (acquired by Palo Alto Networks), Dig Security (acquired by Palo Alto Networks), Gem Security (acquired by Wiz), Curv (acquired by PayPal), Portshift (acquired by Cisco), Illusive Networks (acquired by Proofpoint), Sygnia (acquired by Temasek), Planck (acquired by Applied Systems), and VisibleRisk (acquired by Bitsight). Claroty, one of Team8's earliest venture-created companies, is the firm's cybersecurity unicorn. Active portfolio companies span cybersecurity infrastructure (Akeyless, Ox Security, Ionix), fintech infrastructure (FundGuard), and a wave of 2025-2026 AI-native launches across all four domains (Encore AI, Act Security, Tribal, Frame Security, BAND, FlowRx, Dimer Health, Jazz, Fig Security, Astelia, Lema, Solid).
Team
Team8 is led by a multi-partner Managing Partner group rather than a solo GP, reflecting its domain-split structure (Cyber, Software Infra, Fintech, Digital Health, and Capital/growth):
- Nadav Zafrir — Founder
- Sarit Firon — Managing Partner, Team8 Capital
- Yuval Shachar — Managing Partner & Chairman
- Liran Grinberg — Co-Founder & Managing Partner
- Israel Grimberg — Managing Partner
- Galia Beer-Gabel — Managing Partner, Fintech
- Rakefet Russak-Aminoach — Managing Partner, Fintech (former CEO, Bank Leumi)
- Assaf Mischari — Managing Partner
Beyond the investment partners, Team8 maintains a large bench of domain operating partners and advisors (e.g., former NSA director Adm. Michael Rogers) who sit on the "village" and support due diligence, GTM, and executive recruiting for portfolio companies.
Decision Process
Partnership model. Investment decisions run through the relevant domain Managing Partner (Cyber, Software Infra, Fintech, or Digital Health) in consultation with the broader partner group and, for venture-creation bets, the village of operating experts who help validate the thesis pre-investment.
Founder Preferences
Team8 gravitates toward technical and domain-expert founders solving problems the firm has already mapped through its own research process — frequently veterans of elite technical units (e.g., Israeli intelligence, Unit 8200/Unit 81) or executives who lived the problem operationally (ex-CISOs, ex-hospital administrators, ex-bank executives). Several 2025-2026 portfolio founders are repeat entrepreneurs with prior exits (e.g., Act Security's founders previously built and sold Medigate to Claroty for $400M; BAND's CEO previously founded Sygnia and Ermetic).
Geographic Focus
Dual-hub model: Tel Aviv, Israel and New York, NY, with go-to-market and enterprise customer relationships concentrated in North America (particularly for fintech and digital health portfolio companies) and R&D/founding teams concentrated in Israel.