Scaling New Heights – Updates From YLV’s Israeli Office

It has been six months since I published my previous blog post on the rapid growth of our team. Much has happened since then, as YLV III is up to four outstanding investments: Axonius, Medigate, and two additional startups that will be emerging from stealth soon. Today, I am thrilled to share more exciting updates about the amazing team that is now up and running in our Israeli office:

• Iren Reznikov has been promoted from Associate to Principal. Iren joined us in 2015 as a Senior Analyst, and over time has taken ownership of our entire deal-flow and research activities. Iren has tremendously enhanced our capability to identify interesting investment opportunities, our ability to provide value to portfolio companies and our commitment to being a data-driven organization. Iren, together with Idan Ninyo, our Engineer in Residence, comprise the Israeli side of the investment team. It has been a pleasure working with Iren for the past three years, and it is no surprise to me that she was recently selected to be a part of the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
• Sharon Seemann has been promoted from Marketing Director to VP Marketing. Sharon joined us in 2016, orchestrating the firm’s branding and marketing activities from day one. Sharon is the leading force, together with our Marketing Specialist, Nitzan Yosef, behind YL Ventures’ ubiquitous presence in the industry. Sharon has done an amazing job amplifying our brand, while honing our messaging and promoting our core values. Each of our portfolio companies also enjoy Sharon’s creative mind and sharp execution on everything from social media to large scale PR events
• Our Intelligence team has grown as well, as we have welcomed two experienced Intelligence Analysts – Ayelet Rosendorn and Tal Amor. Both Ayelet and Tal have extensive web intelligence and research backgrounds. They join Lior Anati-Gez on the Intelligence team, which is impressively headed by Yuval Mond.  This team of experienced researchers provide valuable data analysis and market insights, for both YL Ventures itself and our portfolio companies.
• With this massive growth in headcount, not to mention our recently announced EIR program, which already supports three super smart entrepreneurs (Tal Saiag, Asaf Ezra & Eyal Mamo), we knew that it was time for a new home. This week we moved from Mindspace Tel-Aviv to a beautiful and spacious office in Rothschild Boulevard (feel free to visit us!). With all this activity, we’ve now rounded out the team with our most recent addition, Yarden Daya, our new Office Manager, who will be instrumental in supporting the Israeli team across many functions.

Of course, our Israeli team works hand in hand with our Silicon-Valley office, where Managing Partner Yoav Leitersdorf and Vice President John Brennan operate. Together, we work as a cohesive unit in order to win the best investment deals in cybersecurity, enterprise software and automotive technologies, partner with the most brilliant entrepreneurs coming out of Israel, and most importantly – work with our founders on a daily basis to provide value in any way we can. Being an added-value investor is a key component of the YL Ventures strategy, and having such a diversified group of professionals enables us to support our entrepreneurs in multiple ways as meaningful partners in their journey.

On a final note, as the Head of the Israeli office I personally hired each and every one of these fine women & men, and I could not be happier with this ensemble that makes YL Ventures what it is today. I deeply believe the fabric of our team is quite unique in the Israeli VC landscape, and this is a key to our strength, ongoing innovation and future success.