VC Survey 2026
“The boundary between hardware and software is rapidly disappearing”
HiCenter Ventures CEO Lior Hanuka joins CTech to give his investor's outlook for Startup Nation in 2026, from how Israel can establish global leadership in the modern semiconductor era, to the best translation of defense capabilities into the civilian sector, as part of CTech's VC Survey 2026.
Over the next decade, Lior Hanuka, CEO of HiCenter Ventures, predicts a “new category of deep tech companies” will emerge in Israel, driven by the local expansion of giants such as Nvidia. According to Hanuka, this is set to advance both hardware and software fronts, affording Israel a strategic opportunity “to establish global leadership in the modern semiconductor era, where the boundary between hardware and software is rapidly disappearing.”
Following the turbulence of recent years and the stabilization of 2025, the Israeli tech ecosystem is entering a new era: The Next Leap. Hanuka joined CTech to share insights for its VC Survey 2026, which invites prominent investors to discuss the topics, trends, and “leaps” expected in the year ahead.
With a growing focus on hardware-heavy ventures, Hanuka notes that “the current venture capital model of most Israeli funds is still not fully suited for investing in high-CAPEX companies.” However, he foresees the model evolving “toward more hybrid structures, relying on co-investments with global funds seeking exposure to Israel, alongside deeper involvement of local industry.” Overall, he believes that “Israeli tech is increasingly perceived as a resilient, credible, and highly relevant asset class in a volatile global environment.”
You can read the entire interview below:
Fund ID
Name of Fund: HiCenter Venture
Total Assets Under Management (AUM): ~$22.5M (70M NIS)
Partners/Managers: Founders: Lior Hanuka, Hila Ehrenreich, Einat Klein, Moran Ben Harosh; Partners: Lior Hanuka, Hila Ehrenreich, Einat Klein
Notable Portfolio Companies (Active): HAAT, Nurami, GrayMatters Health, a.k.a food
The Global Leap: How is the 'Israeli Tech' asset class being rebranded to global LPs in 2026? Are we shifting the narrative from 'Innovation' to 'Extreme Resilience'?
In 2026, the branding of Israeli tech in the eyes of global investors is built not only on a story of innovation, but also on proven execution under extreme conditions. Israeli founders have demonstrated exceptional resilience through an especially challenging period, with the ability to recover quickly and continue building strong companies. The competitive advantage is reflected in speed to market, close collaboration with customers, and a clear preference for building products that deliver real, measurable value. At the same time, the ecosystem is characterized by unusually high financial discipline, with responsible capital management that extends the runway and meaningfully reduces risk for investors. As a result, Israeli tech is increasingly perceived as a resilient, credible, and highly relevant asset class in a volatile global environment.
The Deep Tech Leap: With the rising focus on hardware-heavy sectors (Defense, Climate, Quantum), is the Israeli VC model adapted to fund high-CAPEX ventures?
In my view, the current venture capital model of most Israeli funds is still not fully suited for investing in high-CAPEX companies, particularly in hardware, manufacturing, and infrastructure-intensive domains. However, I expect this model to evolve in the coming years toward more hybrid structures, relying on co-investments with global funds seeking exposure to Israel, alongside deeper involvement of local industry, including defense companies, banks, and institutional investors. In addition, government funding and instruments from the Israel Innovation Authority will increasingly serve as a critical capital layer, enabling these ventures to accelerate development, reduce risk, and bridge funding gaps. The winners will be those capable of orchestrating a true capital consortium around a company, not just leading a traditional funding round.
The Sovereign Leap: Have the geopolitical lessons of recent years pushed Israeli startups to build independent, 'sovereign' tech stacks to reduce reliance on global platforms?
The push toward technological sovereignty does not depend only on founders, it also depends on the national infrastructure available to support it. More startups are embracing a Sovereign by Design approach, but their ability to execute on it is constrained by the availability of local infrastructure such as advanced data centers, compute capacity, connectivity, energy, and enabling regulation. In Israel, there is still a gap between strategic understanding and infrastructural readiness, which calls for coordinated national investment in critical digital infrastructure. As this infrastructure matures, we will see more companies embedding sovereignty into the DNA of their products, not just responding to customer requirements.
The Dual-Use Leap: Israel has mastered Defense Tech. Which civilian industry (e.g. Construction, Agri, Logistics) will see the biggest disruption from adapting these battle-tested technologies?
Technologies developed within the defense sector provide a significant advantage in areas such as advanced sensing, predictive capabilities, command-and-control systems, and sophisticated learning models. These capabilities do not remain confined to defense, but naturally translate into civilian markets that require high levels of reliability, precision, and real-time decision making. Three sectors in particular are positioned to benefit most from this dual-use transfer: energy and critical infrastructure, logistics and global supply chains, and the financial sector, especially banking. In each of these domains, the adoption of battle-tested technologies enables substantial improvements in risk management, operational efficiency, and systemic resilience, creating a clear opportunity where Israel holds a strong competitive advantage.
The Next Engine: Cybersecurity has been Israel's primary export engine for a decade. Which domain is best positioned to take the lead by 2030?
In my view, the continued expansion of NVIDIA’s presence in Israel can significantly accelerate the semiconductor ecosystem, not only on the hardware side but equally on the software side. On the hardware front, this drives deeper capabilities in chip design, verification, compute architectures, high-speed interconnect, and advanced data center technologies. On the software front, the impact may be even broader, enabling the growth of critical layers around acceleration, compilers, developer tools, optimization, workload orchestration, security, and large-scale AI infrastructure management.
The result is the emergence of a true cluster where Israeli startups are no longer building isolated components, but are positioned across the full AI compute value chain, from silicon to the software layers that translate raw compute into performance and business value. For investors, this creates a new category of deep tech companies with long-term competitive advantage, and a strategic opportunity for Israel to establish global leadership in the modern semiconductor era, where the boundary between hardware and software is rapidly disappearing.
Finally, what are 2-3 startups that, in your opinion, are likely to make a leap forward in 2026?
From HiCenter Ventures’ portfolio:
1. Thetis AI (portfolio company) is likely to make a significant leap forward this year, having already completed its MVP and secured agreements with 5 large shipping companies. The company operates at the intersection of AI, fuel optimization, and regulatory driven decarbonization – a highly acute pain point for the global shipping industry. Its solution delivers immediate and measurable economic value through fuel savings and reduced CO₂ emissions, creating strong incentives for rapid adoption. With proven technology and commercial partnerships already in place, Thetis AI is well positioned to scale deployments and generate early revenues in the coming year.
2. Canotera combines machine intelligence and human expertise to generate assessments of insurance claims by predicting resolution processes and outcomes. Built on advanced predictive modeling, transparent reasoning, and deep legal domain expertise, Canotera illuminates the opaque world of claim resolution by giving insurers clarity and control through data-driven decisions at scale. The platform helps teams understand risk, anticipate outcomes, and make consistent, defensible decisions with greater precision and confidence.
Canotera is poised for massive growth in 2026 as insurance companies face skyrocketing claim related costs driven by macroeconomic pressures and shifting legal trends. With 78% of insurers actively increasing technology budgets, they are seeking AI-powered solutions to navigate the increasingly complex and costly claims landscape. Canotera's platform helps insurance companies to avoid the unnecessary losses, optimize reserving practices, better evaluate risk on a claim and on a portfolio basis, and consistently communicate risk internally and externally.
3. evPower.ai is a strong breakout candidate for 2026, disrupting a massive legacy energy market that has reached an inflection point. The trillion-dollar global energy market faces a rapidly growing gap between grid infrastructure and exponential demand from AI data centers and transportation electrification. As smart-grid and flexibility programs scale to bridge this gap, the winners will be those who can aggregate, control, and trade peak power at scale. evPower.ai is building a gigawatt-scale “premium power” trading platform using novel algorithmic approaches in sectors with extreme power and pricing volatility. With proven real-world impact, evPower.ai is ahead of its cohort and positioned to capture a large and highly lucrative market share.
