Team8, the Israeli venture studio best known for building and funding cybersecurity companies from the ground up, has closed a $365 million fund — one of the largest raises ever for a Tel Aviv-based deep-tech investor. The close marks a significant vote of confidence in the studio model, where firms don’t just write checks but actively co-found companies alongside technical talent. For anyone tracking Israeli startup funding in 2026, this is the headline number of the year so far.
According to Globes reporting, the new fund attracted a roster of major institutional backers, continuing Team8’s track record of pulling in global financial heavyweights. The firm was co-founded by Nadav Zafrir, former commander of Unit 8200, Israel’s elite military intelligence corps, and has built its identity around translating that deep national security expertise into commercial cybersecurity ventures.
The Studio Model — and Why $365M Changes Its Reach
Team8 doesn’t operate like a traditional venture fund. Rather than scouting for startups to back after the fact, it recruits senior technologists and pairs them with a thesis, then builds a company around them. That process is expensive, talent-intensive, and slow by Silicon Valley standards — but it has produced notable exits and a portfolio that spans data security, financial technology, and enterprise AI.
A $365 million war chest dramatically expands what that model can do. More capital means Team8 can fund more company-building cycles simultaneously, recruit more aggressively from the global talent pool, and support portfolio companies deeper into their growth stages before they need to tap external markets. In an environment where early-stage cybersecurity deals are getting more competitive and valuations are climbing, having that kind of internal runway is a real structural advantage.
Timing the Market — Cyber Demand Isn’t Slowing Down
The raise lands at a moment when enterprise cybersecurity spending is under more pressure — and attracting more dollars — than at almost any point in the industry’s history. AI-generated threats, ransomware at industrial scale, and nation-state attacks on critical infrastructure have pushed security from a line item to a board-level priority. Team8’s portfolio companies sit squarely in that demand wave, building tools for cloud security, identity, and data governance that enterprises are actively scrambling to deploy.
The firm’s timing also reflects a broader maturation of Israeli cyber as an asset class. Israel punches far above its weight in security innovation — a function of mandatory military service funneling engineering talent through units like 8200 — and global LPs have spent the last decade learning to treat Tel Aviv as a primary destination for cyber capital, not a secondary one. Team8 helped pioneer that shift, and this fund close cements it further. With deep-tech security investment tightening in some geographies, a $365 million commitment to the studio approach signals that the largest institutional players still see Israel as the place to build the next generation of cyber infrastructure.
For context on how Israeli deep-tech is navigating increasingly high-stakes market dynamics, the recent moves by Wiz founders into adjacent industries illustrates just how much firepower the country’s top security alumni are willing to deploy beyond their core sector. Team8’s new fund is the institutional version of that same ambition — just with a $365 million engine behind it.
