VC Survey 2026
“Most countries and institutions continue to seek Israeli technology”
TAU Ventures Managing Partner Nimrod Cohen joins the VC Survey to discuss the identity of Startup Nation in 2026, the growth of deep tech and defense tech, and the expected influence of these technologies on the civilian sector, as part of the VC Survey 2026: The Next Leap.
“The past two years have once again demonstrated to the world Israel’s exceptional capacity for innovation and creativity,” says Nimrod Cohen, managing partner of TAU Ventures. Cohen believes that now and into the future, Startup Nation will not be defined by either "innovation" or "resilience," but by combining them into a singular value proposition. Moreover, he continues, “beyond headlines and populist rhetoric, most countries and institutions continue to seek Israeli technology, and often, shortly after publicly criticizing Israel, they proceed to purchase Israeli solutions.”
Following the turbulence of recent years and the stabilization of 2025, the Israeli tech ecosystem is entering a new era: The Next Leap. Cohen 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.
Looking ahead, Cohen states that deep tech emerging from academia and the momentum of defense tech are the two domains that “while fundamentally different in origin and dynamic, are well positioned to become major growth engines of Israeli technology exports over the coming decade.”
You can read the entire interview below:
Fund ID
Name of Fund: TAU Ventures
Total Assets Under Management (AUM): $70M
Partners/Managers: Xtend, Swimm, Cyabra, InnerPlant
Notable Portfolio Companies (Active): Xtend, Swimm,. Cyabra, InnerPlant
Notable Exits: (Manager's previous hat) Snyk, Silverfort, Coralogix, WSC Sports, YOTPO, BRINGG
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 my view, the right approach is not to choose between the two, but to deliberately combine them.
The past two years have once again demonstrated to the world Israel’s exceptional capacity for innovation and creativity. At the same time, they have proven something even more differentiated: the ability of the Israeli entrepreneurial ecosystem to execute, adapt, and deliver outcomes under conditions that, in most other markets, would have severely disrupted or even collapsed, the industry altogether.
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?
We are seeing a growing number of investors entering these sectors, and there is no doubt that investing in these domains is fundamentally different from what we have been used to across cost structures, go-to-market dynamics, and time horizons.
At the same time, the AI revolution has driven substantial changes, and in many cases the capital required to reach meaningful milestones has decreased compared to the past.
Investors who fail to internalize these shifts and continue to invest based on assumptions shaped by earlier eras or different sectors will find it increasingly difficult to generate meaningful returns for their LPs.
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 Israeli startup ecosystem is inherently global and cannot exist in isolation.
The war and the rise in antisemitism have negatively impacted a meaningful number of companies, as some investors and customers have been unwilling to engage with Israeli-founded businesses. At the same time, a significant group of investors, primarily Jewish, has increased its exposure to Israeli activity. Moreover, beyond headlines and populist rhetoric, most countries and institutions continue to seek Israeli technology, and often, shortly after publicly criticizing Israel, they proceed to purchase Israeli solutions.
Over the long term, this is not an ideal situation. I remain hopeful and confident that Israel’s global standing will improve in the near future.
Related articles:
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?
I’m not convinced there is a single civilian industry that will benefit disproportionately from these breakthrough technologies. From our experience over the past seven years, we see dual-use and defense-originated technologies being applied across nearly every sector.
Logistics is likely to see the most immediate and scalable disruption. Many of Israel’s defense-driven capabilities autonomy, real-time sensing, computer vision, decision-making under uncertainty, and system resilience translate naturally into logistics, where operations are increasingly complex, distributed, and time-critical.
Warehousing, last-mile delivery, port operations, and supply-chain security can all benefit from technologies originally designed for contested, resource-constrained environments. The key advantage is not just technological superiority, but the ability to deploy reliable systems that perform under stress – an attribute that is becoming mission-critical in civilian supply chains as well.
Over time, we will see similar spillovers into construction and agriculture, but logistics combines scale, urgency, and global demand in a way that makes it the fastest path from defense-grade technology to meaningful commercial impact.
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?
Cybersecurity will remain a core pillar of Israeli tech, but by 2030 we are likely to see two distinct engines taking a more central role.
The first is deep tech emerging from academia. Israeli universities continue to produce world-class research in areas such as AI, materials science, semiconductors, robotics, and applied sciences. As technology transfer mechanisms mature and founders become more commercially oriented, these academic breakthroughs are increasingly forming the basis for venture-scale companies with global relevance.
Separately, defense tech is gaining momentum, driven by the unique operational experience Israeli founders have accumulated in recent years. This experience is translating into companies that focus on reliability, speed of deployment, and performance under extreme conditions attributes that are now in high demand by governments and allied markets worldwide.
Together, these two domains, while fundamentally different in origin and dynamic, are well positioned to become major growth engines of Israeli technology exports over the coming decade.
Finally, what are 2-3 startups that, in your opinion, are likely to make a leap forward in 2026?
From TAU Venture’s portfolio:
1. Xtend: Xtend is poised for a major leap this year following a $70M Series B extension and over $100M raised to date, alongside strong revenue growth in 2025. Strategic validation from multi-million-dollar contracts with the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the U.S. DoD, a collaboration with Lockheed Martin, and the launch of a U.S. headquarters position Xtend at the core of the global defense and unmanned systems market.
2. Futora: Futora is showing strong momentum driven by a meaningful revenue scale in 2025 and growing adoption by leading financial institutions. With $8.2M raised to date and clear product-market fit in AI-driven structured investment solutions, the company is well positioned to expand further across global financial markets.
3. Hoopo: Hoopo is emerging as a category leader in IoT-based asset tracking for global logistics, with rapid ARR growth during 2025 and $27M raised to date from strategic investors. As supply chain visibility and efficiency become mission-critical, Hoopo is well positioned to scale across maritime and logistics ecosystems.
