Omri Casspi raises $250 million after big wins with Cognition, Wonderful and Upwind
Swish Ventures’ latest fund brings its assets under management to $800 million, after investments in nine companies that have already reached unicorn status.
Omri Casspi, the former basketball player turned venture capitalist, has completed a $250 million fundraising round for his third fund, bringing Swish Ventures’ assets under management to $800 million.
Swish began operations in 2025 with Casspi, the fund’s founder, as its sole managing partner. Investors in the new fund include Israeli institutional investors, the U.S. venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, which also invested in Casspi’s previous fund, institutional investors from the United States, and several American universities.
The fund plans to invest in approximately 12 companies, with relatively large checks of about $20 million per company. Swish will typically invest as a joint lead alongside another fund or as a participating investor. The fund focuses on early-stage Seed and Series A investments and operates alongside an Opportunity Fund that allows Swish to invest in companies from the Seed stage through growth.
Casspi initially faced skepticism when he began operating his first, relatively small Seed fund. But he quickly gained access to some of the hottest companies in Israel and the United States, allowing him to build a portfolio that has already produced significant gains. By the end of 2025, that success had enabled him to close a larger $100 million Opportunity Fund that invests across multiple stages.
For example, Swish has invested in both Wonderful, which raised $550 million on Wednesday at a $5 billion valuation, and Upwind, which raised $300 million at a $3.8 billion valuation. Both companies have more than doubled their valuations in less than a year. Casspi is also invested in other prominent Israeli technology companies, including EON, Irregular, Tenzai and Glow, most of which operate in cybersecurity.
The standout investment in the portfolio, however, is the U.S. AI startup Cognition, which is currently raising capital at a valuation of $47 billion. Just three months ago, Cognition raised $1 billion at a $26 billion valuation.
In total, Swish has invested in 21 companies since its inception, nine of which have become unicorns.
“I know $20 million is a large check for the early stages of a company’s life, but I want to find the best opportunities that exist, and in the companies I invest in, I usually put in more money than average. This is a small group of exceptional entrepreneurs,” Casspi told Calcalist.
“We are at the top of the world in terms of returns on our funds, and after the fundraising at Cognition, where I have been investing almost since the company was founded, the aggregate value of the companies will reach almost $100 billion.
“It was important to me to raise money for the fund from institutional investors in Israel so that Israeli investors could also benefit and gain access to some of the best companies in the world today, not only in Israel but also abroad. There are institutional investors that have been with me since the first fund,” Casspi added.
