Which Israeli founders does UpWest tend to identify before the broader US venture ecosystem sees them?
Looking back at 15 years of investing, I see an interesting pattern in how we source and identify founders. A significant percentage come through referrals from our portfolio founders, making that network one of our strongest sources of early relationships.
Most are highly technical, with experience in startups, elite technology units, or big tech. But what stands out is that they engage with us when their ideas are not yet fully validated. They’re confident in their technical abilities but value feedback on go-to-market strategy, timing, and U.S. market validation.
We often get to know these founders before there’s a company, a deck, or even a decision to raise capital. That’s where our earliest conviction begins, as we learn how they think, respond to feedback, and evolve their vision.
We’re also drawn to founders exploring less obvious, sometimes non-consensus markets. Israel has well-established paths in areas like cybersecurity and infrastructure software, but we look for founders willing to take their technical strengths into industries where the path is less paved and the playbook is still being written.
What makes you lead rather than participate and what does your ideal first-check company look like today?
At UpWest, we either lead or co-lead. We rarely just participate. That means the most important part of our investment process is building our own conviction.
For me, that’s also what makes being an investor exciting. Otherwise, you’re essentially following someone else’s conviction and investment process, which is a strategy we see quite a bit of these days.
When you invest as early as we do, conviction starts first and foremost with the team. Their experience, their ability to execute, and why they are uniquely positioned to win.
To develop that conviction, I want to have multiple conversations with the founders, all of them. I want to understand their motivation, their ambition, what they’ve learned so far, and what they believe they still need to explore. I’m interested not only in what they know, but also in how they think, how they challenge their own assumptions, and how they work together. Ultimately, I want to understand why this particular team will win.
My conviction also comes from developing an independent perspective on the market opportunity. That means speaking with potential customers, industry leaders, and other key players, and forming our own thesis about where the market is heading. Is the opportunity large enough? Is it already overly competitive? Are there regulatory barriers? Why is now the right time, and what could make this company an important player in the category?
Our ideal first-check investment is a team with exceptional capabilities, a big ambition, and a compelling insight into a market that is changing. We don’t expect all the answers at pre-seed or seed. In fact, much of the opportunity is in discovering those answers together.
We typically lead or co-lead pre-seed and seed rounds, with initial checks of $1 million to $3 million, depending on the size of the round.
What causes you to pass on a technically impressive Israeli company?
Israeli technical founders are incredibly smart and ambitious, which makes these conversations fascinating. I often come away having learned something new about a technology, an industry, or a problem I hadn’t fully appreciated before.
But technical excellence alone isn’t enough. What sometimes makes us pause, even when the team is technically superior, is a lack of understanding of the market they are trying to serve, an inability to tell a compelling story around the market opportunity, or insufficient curiosity about customers and the business itself.
Sometimes technical founders fall in love with building the technology, and that’s understandable. But we look for a balance between the passion for building something technically exceptional and the drive and ambition to build a significant business around it.
I want to see founders who are as curious about their customers and the market as they are about their technology. Founders who understand that building a great product and building a great company are two different challenges, and who are excited to take on both.
Building an extraordinary company is also about much more than developing a great piece of technology. It’s about building an organization with a distinct culture, one that can attract exceptional people, move fast, make decisions, and execute as the company grows. That takes a different kind of leadership and ambition, and we look for signs of that potential very early.
What have you learned about Israeli founders who have successfully made the Israel/US transition?
Over the years, I’ve watched hundreds of Israeli founders navigate the transition between Israel and the U.S. while building global companies.
In many ways, Israeli founders are uniquely positioned for this journey because they have little choice. Israel has a small domestic market, so for many startups, the U.S. is the target market from day one. Israeli founders tend to be highly adaptable, resilient, comfortable with uncertainty and risk, and culturally curious.
But that doesn’t make the transition easy. It comes with significant personal sacrifices: leaving family and friends, relocating spouses and children, constant travel, and managing teams across challenging time zones.
What I’ve noticed about founders who succeed is that they embrace this journey as an opportunity for personal and professional growth. They immerse themselves in the U.S. market and culture, build strong support systems, and understand that being close to customers is also about learning the nuances of how relationships, trust, and business work in the U.S.
On the company side, they established strong leadership for R&D in Israel while building their go-to-market organization in the U.S. But perhaps the biggest challenge is creating one cohesive company culture across two countries. That requires intentional effort, bringing teams together, building empathy, and investing in communication.
This is where the CEO and people in the leadership team need to be exceptional communicators. They must provide context, build trust, and make sure everyone feels equally connected to the company’s direction and success. One culture, one mission, clear goals. It sounds simple, but achieving it across geographies and cultures takes tremendous leadership.
UpWest has historically played the role of translating Israeli technological and product strength into US market traction.In the current geopolitical climate, has that bridge become harder to build – or conversely, more strategically important?
I believe there has never been a more important time to strengthen the U.S.–Israel technology alliance. As investors in areas such as cybersecurity, AI infrastructure, robotics, industrial technology, and defense, we see tremendous opportunities and remain extremely bullish on Israeli founders innovating in these industries.
We also see strong demand from the market and an appreciation for the ingenuity and real-world experience Israeli founders bring. Whether it’s responding to cyberattacks, developing technologies under extreme conditions, or finding new approaches to healthcare, critical infrastructure, and civilian resilience, Israeli innovators are often solving urgent problems in real time.
It’s unfortunate that so much of this experience comes from living through war, trauma, and uncertainty. But it has also shaped a generation of founders who know how to be resourceful, adapt quickly, and build solutions under extraordinary constraints.
The geopolitical environment certainly adds complexity, but it also reinforces the importance of building bridges between these two ecosystems. Ultimately, enterprises and markets value innovation that solves meaningful problems, and we believe Israeli founders have an enormous opportunity to bring these capabilities to the world.
