UpWest

Zenity continues to capture headlines following an outstanding reveal at the recent Black Hat and DEF CON, two of the major global cybersecurity events, where they unveiled some of the latest vulnerabilities with Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant among today’s top 3 LLM security risks to be aware of. While tackling some of the latest research and insights in security, CTO Michael Bargury demonstrated how Copilot’s critical loopholes can be manipulated by hackers to tap into corporate networks, access private company data and even cause data leaks, highlighting the need for companies to prioritize investment into capable security measures. 📌 Discover more in the TechCrunch and Digit coverages >>> links in the comments below.

We had a blast catching up over drinks at our most recent founders get-together in Tel Aviv. It was a great opportunity to reconnect with some of our founders amidst challenging times in Israel, and share a warm welcome for new founders into our community #UpWestFounders 🙌

Our Founding Partner Shuly Galili just joined the Executive Summary - תקציר מנהלים podcast as a guest speaker. 🎙️ Drawing from the past 13 years at UpWest, Shuly revealed what it’s like writing the first check for early-stage startup founders while spilling some of the secrets on: 👉 What we look for in startups and founding teams 👉 How we evaluate and select companies to invest in 👉 How founders should prepare for VC meetings 👉 Understanding risk, uncertainty, and potential in early investments Interested in giving it a listen? 📌 Find the link to the full episode in the comments below.

Our Lia Cromwell recently spoke with Mako Digital about the state of Israeli high-tech, covering some of the latest trends and the development of the job market. Lia shared how the high demand for Israeli technology, with an emphasis on cybersecurity, and ongoing funding across various sectors is reassuring of the continued positive trajectory of the industry. 📈 "Despite the challenges, it has been our most active investment period in years, with investments in cybersecurity, AI, fintech, digital health, biotech, and govtech since the war began." Additionally offering advice to early-stage Israeli founders, Lia also mentioned: “The first thing an entrepreneur needs to prioritize is market feedback. Spend as much time as possible speaking to your target customers – that also means speaking to customers in your target geographic market." 📌 Find the link to the article (Hebrew) in the comments below! 👇

We’re thrilled to announce that our portfolio company InnerPlant has raised a $30M Series B funding round! InnerPlant genetically engineers plants so they can emit a clear signal to growers immediately in the presence of stressors such as pests, a lack of nutrients, or fungal pressure. These signals can occur weeks before any other existing technology would be able to alert growers of a problem. The round was led by Coutts Agro Ltd., alongside participating investors including John Deere, Bison Ventures, and Systemiq Capital. We’re proud to be #FirstCheck investors in the company, supporting their journey in building the future of farming. Congratulations to Shely Aronov and the outstanding InnerPlant team! 👏🌱 📌 Read the full story in the comments below!

Last week, we were thrilled to host an incredible event focused on breaking into the US market and the early days of company-building. Held in partnership with the wonderful Matzov Entrepreneurship Forum, the event was a full house with dozens of talented entrepreneurs who came to learn about what founders should prioritize. To kick us off, Lia Cromwell provided an overview of US market penetration while addressing the common misconceptions Israeli founders have, which was followed by an outstanding panel with three founders of our portfolio companies, Michael Bargury, Noam Maital, and Nir Giller, who shared valuable insights from their go-to-market journeys in the US. Key takeaways from the session: 🔑 There’s no replacement for in-person interactions with your target market. US presence is a must! 🔑 Early go-to-market is disorderly and ever-evolving. Seek to learn from every conversation with your prospects, and especially from rejections. 🔑 Validation needs to come exclusively from qualified prospects. If feedback comes from someone who’s not your target customer, then it’s not the feedback you’re looking for.  🔑 Founder-led sales are essential early on, and should be leveraged towards developing product-market fit. We were pleased to meet all the entrepreneurs who joined us for the insightful dialogue led by the founders' panel. 🎙️ A special thanks to our portfolio company SentinelOne for generously hosting us, and to Matzov Entrepreneurship Forum for joining us in organizing this event! 🙌 Yam Stutz | Tal Benyunes | Ori Striechman | Shlomi Salem 📸 Elad Gutman

We’ve recently partnered with Caroline Maier who led a spectacular workshop for our portfolio founders at our latest Founder Connect. 🤝 Focusing on growth marketing strategies and building brand equity, the workshop emphasized the necessity of building an effective relationship between your marketing and sales functions, covering how to: 🔹Define and differentiate between lead-gen and demand-gen, and why starting with demand-gen is crucial 🔹Set actionable insights and the right performance benchmarks throughout your marketing funnel 🔹Avoid common pitfalls when deploying your inbound and outbound channels, and utilize practical frameworks for each (tech stack, CRM, website, email nurturing, content SEO, and more) 🔹Bring personalization into play in an AI-driven world, including leveraging AI in purchase data analytics, predicting buying patterns, sales opportunities, and market trends, as well as creating and automating personalized content Keeping our Founder Connect’s emphasis on scaling GTM efforts, this was another fantastic opportunity for our founders to gain insight into making the best marketing investments, optimize for a stable growth engine, share their experiences, and support each other’s journeys. We thank everyone who participated, and look forward to next time! 🙌

Curious to discover how early-stage investors think and operate? Join our very own Lia Cromwell at this exciting panel as she takes you behind the scenes and shares how we evaluate investment opportunities at UpWest. Learn how we: 👉 Choose the best-fitting opportunities 👉 Classify funding rounds as seed vs pre-seed 👉 Identify which AI solutions are fads and which are winners 📌 Register to join below 👇 https://lnkd.in/ghqEXxnd

We’ve recently teamed up with Jonathan Seroussi, who led an insightful workshop for our portfolio tech leaders. 👥 Focusing on building frameworks for evaluating employee performance and encouraging their growth, the workshop covered: 👉 Distinguishing between the high, average and under-performers 👉 Creating a correlation between high performance and company values 👉 Optimizing for many high performers, to create an ‘L’ curve rather than the common bell pattern 👉 Instilling processes to track and measure employee output to spot difficulties in real-time 👉 Empowering employees to grow and improve, and clearly defining how improvement looks for juniors, seniors, and management Offering a wealth of tactical guidance in building a high-performance workforce, the workshop was also an opportunity for our community to come together in person, catch up, and share experiences and feedback with each other. Thank you to everyone who took part in this! 👏

A recent annual global report on gender equality in management by Deloitte illustrates a decline in senior management positions held by women, with a particularly noticeable decline in Israel. The report shows that women made up 15% of chairpersons and 8.1% of CEOs of public companies in Israel in 2018, and had fallen to only 5.6% (chairpersons) and 3.5% (CEOs) in 2023. Our Founding Partner, Shuly Galili, weighs in on the alarming phenomenon in an interview with CTech by Calcalist: "We must see more women who are partners in the growth of artificial intelligence. This field is going to be significant, impacting many industries and shaping our reality. There are leading women in this field, but the lack of women is alarming. We must not let 50% of the population be excluded from its design, both in academia and industry." Explaining how the pandemic and ongoing market uncertainty have made fewer women willing to leave secure positions for entrepreneurial ventures, Shuly emphasizes the critical role of women leaders and partners in shaping the future of sectors, particularly the emerging AI industry. 📌 Find the link in the comments below 👇