VC Survey 2026
“In an agentic world, niche markets are no longer a constraint”
Vintage Investment Partners partner Tzlil Kovetz joins CTech to discuss the upward bar for IPOs, how ACV is becoming a signal of value creation, and why niche verticals are "more interesting than ever," as part of CTech's VC Survey 2026: The Next Leap.
“In an agentic world, niche markets are no longer a constraint – they can be a source of durable advantage,” says Tzlil Kovetz, partner at Vintage Investment Partners. Kovetz argues that while investors have typically chased broad horizontal markets, thanks to agentic AI and the highly specific context that suits it most, the next wave of value will be found in specialized segments where “markets that may look relatively small on paper can become very large in practice.”
Following the turbulence of recent years and the stabilization of 2025, the Israeli tech ecosystem is entering a new era: The Next Leap. Kovetz 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.
Kovetz predicts the "amazing" liquidity velocity Startup Nation experienced in 2025 will continue into 2026, however, “the bar for IPOs is clearly going up,” she notes. “Companies need greater scale, stronger profitability profiles, and clear structural tailwinds to attract public market demand.” Meanwhile, she expects ACV to gain importance as a critical growth metric in the AI era, asserting that “the ability to charge like you are replacing real labor, not just selling software, is a strong indicator of true value creation and market trust.”
You can read the entire interview below:
Fund ID
Name of Fund: Vintage Investment Partners
Partners/Managers: Abe Finkelstein, Asaf Horesh (co-managing partners); Amit Frenkel (general partner); Shira Eting, Iren Reznikov, Leyla Holterud (partners); Alan Feld (founder & managing partner emeritus)
Notable Portfolio Companies (Active): HoneyBook, Mirakl, Minute Media, Alice (FKA: ActiveFence), Cast AI, Cynet, Datarails, Silverfort, Wiliot, Zafran, Exodigo, Guardio, Vast, Holidu
Notable Exits: Monday.com, JFrog, SentinelOne, Innovid, Wolt, Klarna, Moovit
The Liquidity Leap: After a period defined by cash preservation, will 2026 see the reopening of the IPO window for Israeli tech, or will M&A remain the sole viable liquidity event?
2025 was actually an amazing year for liquidity in Israeli tech, and we expect that momentum to continue into 2026.
We’ve seen early signs of the public markets reopening with eToro, Navan and Via IPOs last year. That said, the bar for IPOs is clearly going up. Companies need greater scale, stronger profitability profiles, and clear structural tailwinds to attract public market demand. As a result, the IPO window is open, but only for a relatively narrow set of top-tier companies. I do expect more IPOs in 2026 as leading Israeli companies continue to push that bar higher.
At the same time, M&A volumes have grown off the charts, including at much larger scales than we’ve seen in previous years. Acquisitions are no longer just a liquidity path for smaller companies, but an increasingly viable and attractive option even for highly scaled businesses.
Overall, it feels like the Israeli tech ecosystem’s ability to generate liquidity is improving across multiple paths.
The Valuation Leap: Moving past the market correction, what is the single most critical metric (e.g. EBITDA, NRR) that will drive premium valuations in 2026?
At Vintage, we look at the market from both a bird’s-eye view of early-stage investing and a hands-on perspective as growth investors. That distinction matters when thinking about valuation drivers.
At the early stage, beyond team quality, I still expect valuations in 2026 to be heavily influenced by having a credible AI story. In the current market dynamics, and until we see market correction, companies that can well position themselves within that narrative continue to command premiums.
As companies move later in stage, valuation drivers shift meaningfully. Promise gives way to proof. There is no single metric that applies universally across sectors, and investors increasingly take a holistic view. That said, strong unit economics and a clear path to profitability at scale have become baseline requirements rather than sources of upside, while growth remains the most impactful driver of premium valuations.
One metric I expect to gain importance is ACV (annual contract value). As more companies claim their AI can replace or meaningfully augment human labor, pricing power becomes a critical signal. The ability to charge like you are replacing real labor, not just selling software, is a strong indicator of true value creation and market trust.
The Agentic Leap: As we transition from 'Copilots' to autonomous 'Agents,' which specific vertical will be the first to fully trust AI with independent decision-making?
I think the right question is not 'which vertical', but which 'decision environment'. The first wave of successful agents is concentrated in high-volume, tedious, repeatable, low-judgment processes. They exist in every vertical. Those are the low hanging fruits for agentic workflows. They are the ideal environment for autonomous agents adoption for three reasons. First, their outputs require much less free judgment, and are easy to verify and audit, which lowers the trust threshold. Second, these tasks are often handled either by the most junior employees or consume disproportionate time from highly skilled teams, which lower the adoption resistance. Third, the ROI is clear. Beyond cost reduction, agents unlock new capabilities like real-time execution, 24/7 operation, full coverage rather than sampling, and proactive intervention rather than reactive workflows.
As a result, I expect the first wave of agentic workflows to emerge and see success in domains such as tax operations, procurement workflows, compliance monitoring, legal operations, customer support, etc. These are where AI agents can prove reliability, compound value quickly, and build the foundation for broader adoption across more judgment-heavy domains over time.
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?
Rather than focusing on a single civilian industry, I’d frame this again in terms of capability transfer. Creative entrepreneurs are finding civilian applications for battle-tested technologies across a wide range of sectors. We’re seeing companies adapt drones for logistics, repurpose underground-detection technologies for civil engineering and construction, and apply missile and aerospace capabilities to civilian space applications, among many other examples.
As a society, we've always known to transform the necessity of operating under constant threat, into durable technological advantages. This situation gives us both the tech and the mental foundations to build ground-breaking, durable, global companies. Our booming cyber ecosystem is a clear proof point of this dynamic, and I believe we’ll see many more founders building on the same foundation to disrupt a diverse set of civilian industries in the years ahead.
The Contrarian Leap: What is one sector or trend currently ignored by the herd that you believe represents the most undervalued opportunity for the coming year?
I think niche verticals are becoming more interesting than ever, even though they’re often overlooked by the market. Investors are used to looking for very large TAMs and broad customer bases. In the context of agentic AI, that mindset can be misleading.
Agentic systems work best in environments with highly specific context, rich and proprietary data, and deeply embedded, industry-specific workflows. That level of specialization is easier to achieve when narrowing down the addressable market segments with well-defined use cases and integrations.
What makes these opportunities particularly compelling is the shift in value capture. As agents move beyond software and start replacing or augmenting human labor, ACVs can grow well beyond what we’re used to seeing in SaaS. Once a product is deeply embedded in daily operations, it can also become part of payment flows or other core economic activities, enabling monetization across a much broader surface area.
As a result, markets that may look relatively small on paper can become very large in practice, often with limited direct competition. In an agentic world, niche markets are no longer a constraint – they can be a source of durable advantage.
Finally, what are 2-3 startups that, in your opinion, are likely to make a leap forward in 2026?
From Vintage’s portfolio:
Exodigo - Exodigo is a vertical AI company serving construction and civil engineering, helping customers across utilities, transportation, and government understand what lies underground. The company is bringing advanced, battle-tested technologies into the civilian world, using a multi-sensor approach and deep AI capabilities to address a massive, multi-billion-dollar problem by preventing costly and dangerous surprises during construction. Exodigo has been rapidly expanding its value proposition and is seeing strong market pull, driven by macro tailwinds such as infrastructure investment, risk mitigation, and increasing regulatory pressure. As projects grow larger and more complex, Exodigo’s technology is becoming increasingly mission-critical, setting the stage for significant growth in 2026 and well beyond.
Gelt - Gelt is poised for a breakout in 2026 as individuals increasingly seek a better tax experience, and the gap between traditional tax firms and what a tech- and AI-enabled firm can offer continues to widen. Gelt is a leading tech-enabled tax firm focused on high-net-worth individuals, often business owners, addressing a segment where tax planning has historically been highly relationship-driven. The company is turning a traditionally manual, high-friction process into a scalable, automated experience, while directly tying its value to real financial outcomes for clients. By deliberately keeping a human in the loop for final judgment calls and relationship ownership, Gelt overcomes the trust barrier, increases stickiness, and builds a durable advantage.
