Russell Rothstein

Small companies don’t fail because they’re small — they fail because they lose focus. In this episode, we break down how LEGO rebuilt itself and how the same strategy can help Israeli tech teams win globally. 👇 The full podcast link is waiting for you in the comments.

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𝐂𝐲𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐩: December 2025 2025 is almost in the books And what better way to end the year with another massive exit... ServiceNow acquires Armis for an astounding $7.75B in cash. It's been quite an incredible year for Israeli cyber exits. With a handful of the largest M&As (Wiz, CyberArk, and Armis) in the Israeli hi-tech ecosystem. Truly remarkable. We end 2025 with more cyber funding rounds And Dr. Cyber has the scoop. So, here we go... Funding Rounds: → Saviynt raises $700M in Series B → Eon.io raises $300M in Series D → Fastly raises $160M Post-IPO Debt → 7AI raises $130M in Series A → Vega raises $120M in Series B → Antithesis raises $105M in Series A → Axiado Corporation raises $100M in Series C → Zafran Security raises $60M in Series C → Act raises $40M in Series A  → Echo raises $35M in Series A → SpecterOps raises $30M Venture Round → imper.ai raises $28M in Funding → Prime Security raises $20M in Series A → Kasada raises $19.9M Venture Round → Lumia Security raises $18M in Seed → vijil raises $17M Venture Round → Codenotary raises $16.5M Funding Round → Multifactor (YC F25) raises $15M in Seed → NetFoundry raises $15M in Series A → Resemble AI raises $13M in Strategic Funding → Equixly API Security raises €10M in Series A → Dux Security raises $9M in Seed → Helmet Security, Inc. raises $9M in Seed → Verisoul raises $9M in Series A → Alinia AI raises $7.5M in Seed → Saporo raises €7M in Series A → TestMachine raises $6.5M Venture Round → Mirror Security raises $2.5M in Pre-Seed → Realm.Security, Inc raises $2M Venture Round What else? → Israeli cybersecurity funding climbs to $4.4B, up 46% in 2025 → Proofpoint finalizes $1.8B acquisition of Hornetsecurity → Check Point raises $1.75B Upsized Private Offering of 0.00% Convertible Senior Notes → Cyera raises $400M at $9B valuation → Exein raises an additional €100M (€170M total) → Outpost24 acquires Infinipoint for tens of millions → Netskope shares dip over 5%  → Aqua Security lays off dozens in restructuring Huge congrats to Yotam Segev Ran Lampert Ben Seri Michael N. Stephan Goldberg Eilon Elhadad Shay Sandler Or Latovitz Noam Awadish 🎉 🎉 And as always... Follow Dr. Cyber Media 🩺 to stay in the cybersecurity loop.

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One of the most common surprises Israeli tech companies face in the U.S.: ** The way you describe your product is not always the way the market understands it. ** Gartner reports that 73% of B2B buyers avoid vendors whose outreach feels irrelevant (Gartner, 2025 Sales Research). Translation: If your positioning misses the mark, you may never even enter the buying conversation. Many strong companies are only one messaging adjustment away from much stronger traction. If you're navigating this phase of global expansion, happy to compare notes. #USmarket #USmarketexpansion #globalbusinessdevelopment #israel #israelhitech #globalmarketing

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In-House vs Outsourced SDR? How Israeli Startups Win Should your Israeli startup build an SDR team or outsource it? In this episode, Benny Fluman and Brian Newman share what really works in the field, backed by real data, timelines, and success stories. They talk about how one company doubled its pipeline in just 45 days, when building in-house starts to make sense, and why SDRs are not only about lead generation but also about long-term customer retention and growth. If you’re leading a company that’s scaling globally, this episode is a must-listen. 🎙 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. youtube https://lnkd.in/dEjmFpnV spotify https://lnkd.in/dSVbMrNz Apple https://lnkd.in/dchehjjG

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The Founder vs. VP Sales Struggle: I’ve Seen This Story Too Many Times Meet Shoham. Israeli tech co-founder. Brilliant, deeply technical. Fresh off an $18M funding round in cloud security. He is the product. Codes at midnight. Fixes bugs himself. Zero patience for fluff, mediocrity, or delays. His mantra? “Get. Shit. Done.” He lives for depth, speed, and control. Delegation? A struggle. Celebrations? Rare. Then comes Josh. A rockstar American VP Sales. Backed by a lead investor. Proven record scaling GTM from $0 to $50M+. Knows the buyers. Knows the playbook. Knows how to build repeatable revenue. He hires well, builds infrastructure, trusts his team. He also made it clear: "Stay out of my sandbox." 9 months in... Revenue targets missed. Twice. Shoham’s doubts are creeping in. "When I made the first sales, it took half the time." "What do they even do all day?" "Why aren’t they including me in customer calls?" Josh holds his ground: “This is how you build sustainable growth. It takes time. Process matters.” But the room's stopped listening. The trust is breaking. The fire is spreading silently: – Sales team isolated – Product team skeptical – CEO caught in the middle We all know how this story ends. The VP walks. The founder is left scarred, doubting every future sales leader. But it doesn’t have to end this way. Think Phil Jackson. He coached Jordan and Rodman. He knew how to align stars, opposites, egos – toward one goal. Startups are no different. Building real trust between founders and sales leaders takes: 🔹 Intellectual humility 🔹 Clear expectations 🔹 Vulnerability 🔹 Empathy 🔹 And a whole lot of elbow grease It’s not magic. But it is a skill. One that can be learned – and mastered. If this hit close to home, let’s talk. I’ve seen this story play out dozens of times – and helped rewrite the ending. #startups #salesleadership #founderjourney #trust #culture #growth #gtm

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“Within 10 years, there will be at least 10 more Israeli companies like Wiz” Cyberstarts founder Gili Raanan, the first investor in Wiz, says Google’s $32 billion acquisition will reshape Israel’s tech ambitions.  “The sale of Wiz to Google is an event that goes far beyond investors, employees, or taxes. Just as the ICQ deal broke the first glass ceiling for Israeli exits, followed by Waze, which broke the billion-dollar barrier, Wiz is now shattering every possible ceiling. This will influence Israeli high-tech, the economy, and the country for generations,” says Gili Raanan, founder of the venture capital firm Cyberstarts and the first investor in the cybersecurity company. Sophie Shulman 16:44, 11.03.26 https://lnkd.in/dr7nGthr

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Israeli Tech Still Delivers, NO MATTER WHAT. Last year, the #NoMatterWhat campaign helped put Israeli tech back in the global conversation. That message is still relevant. Now more than ever, the voices of the Israeli tech ecosystem must be heard. Startup Nation Central is here to empower Israeli companies and their employees to convey their message with impact by providing them with resources that effectively strengthen their communication and messaging. Download the toolkit here- https://okt.to/muICbq Use it to show your network what resilience and optimism look like. *Make sure to share this post with your network so that others can benefit. Viola Ventures | G-CMO | Atreo

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I added the new Israeli Proptech startup landscape by TLV Partners to my 2025 collection on VC Cafe. There are over 200+ Israeli startups operating in the proptech sector (including a number of unicorns). The new crop of AI-first startups are penetrating every layer of the tech stack - from elevating the tenant experience and enabling predictive maintenance, to construction site monitoring and delivering AI-driven infrastructure insights. Link to the CTech by Calcalist article with the commentary below.

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​Israel's unmatched "Founder Density" is a global engine for progress. ​With 151 founders per million people—making it 3.4x more efficient than US, the #2 on the list. Beyond the numbers, Israeli innovation provides the essential tools that protect and sustain mankind: ​Saving Lives: Leading the world in AI-driven diagnostics and personalized medicine to improve patient outcomes globally. ​Feeding the Planet: Water-recycling and climate-resilient agriculture to combat global food insecurity. ​Securing the Digital World: Providing the cybersecurity infrastructure that protects global finance and privacy. ​Environmental Stewardship: Developing carbon-capture and clean-energy solutions. Try to remember the last time you heard about Palestinian or Iranian startup the made your life better.

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The Israeli ecosystem is alive in New York more than ever before! New York City opens a new chapter this week, and we are confident that it will continue to thrive as a global center of opportunity. Almost 500 Israeli companies now operate here, including 65 unicorns, more than many other countries combined. They help safeguard and strengthen the systems that define modern urban life, from financial and regulatory cybersecurity to strategic risk management, digital health, insurance innovation, and communications infrastructure, contributing fundamental value to the city and its residents, a value that will only grow in #2026. We are proud to build from here, from our New York hub, Margalit Startup City, and the offices of JVP, in this global capital whose character, ambition, and resilience make it a place where innovation can truly shape the world. We invite entrepreneurs from the innovative economies of #Italy, #Germany, #France, the #UK, and the #Nordic countries to join us. If the West Coast is the U.S. technology hub, then by gathering all of these forces, #New York is becoming the international technology hub. This is the competitive advantage we bring to the city. Follow Margalit Startup City for updates on the events we’ll be hosting in the city this month.

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The funding will be used to expand the data cost optimization startup's Israeli R&D center, deepen product capabilities, support additional data platforms, and accelerate growth in the US by expanding the sales organization *** Yuki, a data cost optimization startup, has emerged from stealth with a $6 million seed round led by Hyperwise Ventures, with participation from VelocitX, Tal Ventures, Fresh.fund, and Yakir Daniel, founder of Spot.io (Flexera). Full details: https://lnkd.in/di3GnsHR Ido Arieli Noga Hadar Shpivak Dana Bilder-Morozova Perry T. Yana Peres Nathan Shuchami Alex Mirkin Amit Yahalom Amir Peres

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According to Crunchbase, the total volume of M&A deals in the U.S. during the first half of 2025 was around $100 billion. But here’s the catch: that figure includes the $32 billion acquisition of Israeli startup Wiz. If you exclude that deal, Israeli companies accounted for $64 billion in exits—compared to just $68 billion for the entire remaining U.S. market. That’s a truly staggering result. אין כמו ישראל 🇮🇱 🇮🇱🇮🇱

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A Win-Win for Innovation & the Economy The benefits are dual-fold: 1️⃣ Israeli companies gain access to a massive customer base and resources to scale. 2️⃣ The US economy benefits from innovation, jobs, and technological leadership. The future of innovation is global Watch The Full Episode W/ Leib B.: https://lnkd.in/eKwDNQvc Brought to you by Harper Belmont & Optima Mergers & Acquisitions #Innovation #IsraelTech #USGrowth #StartupEcosystem #ScalingOpportunities

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The stats shared by Ilya are striking — relocating to the U.S. can seriously boost your odds of building a unicorn. But there’s a deeper layer to this conversation. The U.S. isn’t just a bigger market — it’s a meaning-making machine. In many countries, startups evolve as “engineer → product.” In the U.S., the sequence is more like “engineer + investor + marketer + lawyer → business story.” That difference matters — especially in complex fields like decentralized telecom or personal aviation, where pure tech isn’t enough. You need the right narrative, fast iterations, and cross-domain collision. In my experience, the U.S. doesn’t just help you scale. It helps you ask the right question: why scale this at all? Curious — has moving your startup not only changed your size, but also your direction of thought? #startups #venturecapital #deeptech #telecom #aviation #USmarket #founderjourney

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Proud to see how quickly meaningful support can reach people when the right infrastructure is in place. Together with Cal (Israel Credit Cards), organizations such as EL AL Israel Airlines and municipalities like Beit Shemesh are able to distribute assistance quickly and efficiently to those who need it — anywhere in the world. We’re proud that the Custodia platform serves as the foundational infrastructure that makes initiatives like this possible. Glad we can help! A special thank you to our partners at MalamTeam and Custodia Israel for helping make this happen!

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Most startup stories begin with the exit. This one begins with a shutdown. Most founder stories start with the win. This one starts with the wrong bet. It began inside The Zell Entrepreneurship Program at Reichman University, where Or Briga met the co-founder who would define the next eight years of his life, alongside Shai Arnon, also a Zell grad, and unknowingly lay the groundwork for both failure and reinvention.  In 2019, eSports was exploding. The narrative felt obvious: build the largest online training platform and academy for competitive gamers.  So they built NOVOS games - a data-driven training platform for gamers. Six years. $7M raised. A category built from scratch. Their first investor? A Zell mentor who backed them the moment they graduated. Then reality intervened. The market didn’t mature the way everyone predicted. Adoption stalled. Growth slowed. And eventually they faced the hardest founder truth there is: the hypothesis was wrong. So they did the rare thing: 𖧹 They shut the company down. 𖧹 Returned the remaining capital. 𖧹 And asked the terrifying question: what now? What survived wasn’t the product - it was the partnership. Instead of walking away, they doubled down on what actually worked. That customer came from a conversation with SuperPlay’s CEO, who offered to be their first buyer if they built better payments infrastructure for direct-to-consumer gaming. 𖧹 They moved fast. 𖧹 Didn’t raise capital. 𖧹 Built with scars instead of slides. Within a year, Galleon (acquired by Stash) was processing hundreds of millions annually. And recently, it was acquired by Stash. The speed wasn’t luck. It was compound learning. And Or is clear about one thing: the second company only exists because the first one failed. That’s the part of founder stories we should talk about more. - - - - - - What lesson from a “failed” chapter ended up being the foundation for your next win? Ori Schnitzer Naomi Scheinman Liraz Sharabani Reichman University Reichman University Alumni Association American Friends of Reichman University (IDC) American Friends of Reichman University (IDC Herzliya)

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Fantastic research by Ilya Strebulaev. His research suggests that geographical location has impact on whether startups/scaleups get to unicorn status.

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This a very interesting study by Prof' Strebulaev offers two very important conclusions: 1.. A none U.S. startup has a better chance to succeed if moving the the U.S. However, all things being equal, all foreign startups should have had similar results after moving to the U.S., hwever that is not the case, thus the other coclusion here that the country of origin is also important. 2.. Israel is the start-up nation .. The book by that name analyse the reasons for that phenomena ..

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