New Investors Join Israeli Firm Sarona Ventures Fund

Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm Sarona Ventures Fund, the latest fund of Sarona Partners Group, announced this week that many new unicorn companies, prominent venture capital partners, and entrepreneurs have joined as new investors. 

Among the unicorn investors are corporate travel and expense management company TripActions, AI transcription software company Verbit, payroll and compliance provider Deel, digital experience and intelligence platform ContentSquare, and global fintech company SumUp.

Venture capital investors include Spark Capital, Green Bay Ventures, and Andreesen Horowitz’s general partner Anish Acharya. 

Additional investors include the partners’ fund of global law firm Orrick, as well as entrepreneurs including the Afflelou family, Austria’s largest angel investor Johann ‘Hansi’ Hansmann, co-founder of Tinder Justin Mateen, Dr. Ravi Dattatreya, and Olivier Elbaz. 

Sarona Partner’s $20 million fund will be directed towards early-stage investments in Israeli entrepreneurs and startups in their seed and Series A phases, particularly those that have graduated from world class American accelerator Y-Combinator, and recently launched fund-owned accelerators. 

The Sarona Ventures Fund has invested in the following Israeli companies: ByondXR, a 3D and augmented reality company; Salvador Technologies, a cyber-attack, software, and hardware recovery company; Agora, an investment management software firm; Depoint, a retail operations and efficiency organizer; and Medcase, a company that provides medical data to giants like Google. 

Sarona Partners Group founded Sarona Ventures in 2017 as its investment arm led by chairman Philip Bouaziz and CEO Toot Shani. The group’s portfolio includes more than 300 startups to date, including seven unicorns: Deel, Verbit, Ramp, Clickhouse, CoinTracker, Notion, and Sorare. The group is also one of the largest accelerator bodies in Israel, with four acceleration and scale-up programs that range from seed to series B stages. 

“We are lucky and proud to have so many amazing people join our vision,” said Shani. “We are honored to have our scale up strategy validated by the best people of the industry. With the help and advice from such amazing investors, our startups will fly.”