VC Survey 2026
“The next generation of Israeli tech is emerging from a very different pipeline: ex-combat commanders”
AnD Ventures managing partner Adi Gozes joined CTech for its 2026 VC Survey.
Adi Gozes, AnD Ventures managing partner.
(Video: Orel Cohen)
“We believe the most undervalued opportunity in the market today is the non-obvious founder. There’s a clear arbitrage in favor of execution over hype, and while the herd continues to overpay for 8200-branded teams, we see the next generation of Israeli tech emerging from a very different pipeline: ex-combat commanders and operational leaders,” said Adi Gozes, managing partner at AnD Ventures.
After several years of turbulence and a measure of stabilization in 2025, the Israeli tech ecosystem is undergoing its Next Leap. Gozes joined CTech for its 2026 VC Survey to share insights on how she sees Israeli tech advancing in the next year, during which she explained that the traditional methodology of relying on post-IDF intelligence soldiers to form the ranks of a successful company could be turned on its head in the new year.
“Where teams often raise at premium valuations based on pedigree, combat-led teams are frequently overlooked simply because they lack the immediate tech halo. Yet these founders bring the traits that matter most in the Seed-to-A grind - relentless execution, high-stakes decision-making, resourcefulness under pressure, and the ability to maintain morale through chaos,” she said. “A commander-led team will often achieve more with $1M than a pedigree-driven team will with $6M.”
You can read the entire interview below.
ID Card:
Name of Fund: AnD Ventures
Total Assets Under Management (AUM): $75M
Partners/Managers: Lee Moser, Adi Gozes, Roy Geva Glasberg
Notable Portfolio Companies (Active): Ludeo, Onebeat, Perfect
Notable Exits: N/A
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?
Liquidity will become increasingly attainable in 2026. After a record-setting year for M&A activity in 2025, highlighted by mega-deals such as Wiz, CyberArk, and Armis, we expect this momentum to continue, with multinationals doubling down on Israel as a strategic innovation hub. For most Israeli startups, M&A will remain the primary path to liquidity, delivering outcomes well before companies reach $100M+ in ARR.
At the same time, 2026 will mark the early reopening of the IPO window, albeit selectively and only for companies demonstrating predictable efficiency, strong unit economics, and clear category leadership. The late-2025 public offerings from Navan, eToro, and Via have already signaled a cautious return of Israeli tech to U.S. exchanges. We are gradually shifting from a “buyout-only” environment to a true dual-track market.
It’s also worth noting that public markets are currently awarding a meaningful valuation premium to companies with deep AI integration. Given Israel’s exceptional density of AI talent, this dynamic positions the ecosystem as a prime target for both institutional investors seeking exposure to AI and global strategics looking to accelerate their AI roadmaps.
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?
We’re seeing companies grow Annual Recurring Revenue at unprecedented rates, but a meaningful portion of that growth comes from “hype revenue” - expansion driven by experimentation rather than durable product value. As a result, investors are becoming far more disciplined, shifting their focus from top-line momentum to the quality and durability of that revenue.
In 2026, the single most important metric driving premium valuations will be Net Revenue Retention (NRR). NRR encapsulates everything the market currently rewards: genuine customer love, real product utility, depth of value, and whether the solution is a true painkiller rather than a temporary curiosity.
In an environment defined by AI-driven automation and decreasing willingness to pay, companies that expand within existing accounts without heavy sales effort will command the highest multiples, often exceeding traditional SaaS efficiency benchmarks. Durable expansion is becoming the clearest signal of product-market fit in the AI era.
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?
The shift from “Copilots” (human-in-the-loop) to fully autonomous “Agents” will begin in verticals that are not heavily regulated and don’t carry life-or-death liability. We’re already seeing early signs in the rise of AI SDRs and AI-powered customer support agents, but we will also see a leap in operational roles where workflows are structured, repetitive, and suffer from acute talent bottlenecks.
An early adopter will be FinOps, where labor shortages intersect with highly deterministic workflows. This is the ideal environment for the first generation of autonomous “controllers” handling billing, collections, reconciliation, and compliance. These systems will transition from recommendation engines to fully executable agents far earlier than most people expect.
We will also see the rise of AI agents in various enterprise workflows. One example is talent recruitment, where the workflows are both structured and painfully manual. From sourcing and screening to initial outreach and skill-matching, “Autonomous Talent Partners” will run continuous pipelines in the background - identifying candidates, validating experience, generating personalized outreach, and even conducting structured first-round assessments.
Companies like Perfect (AnD Portfolio) are early signals of this shift, demonstrating how recruitment can move from human-driven coordination to agent-led execution.
These systems won’t replace human judgment in final hiring decisions, but they will autonomously handle 80% of the recruiting workload, enabling startups to scale hiring without scaling HR teams.
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 think the more interesting trend we’re seeing is actually the reverse of the traditional narrative. For decades, Israeli innovation flowed from Military to Commercial: founders emerged from elite IDF units like 8200 or Mamram and “productized” advanced defense technologies for enterprise or consumer markets.
Today, a new and potentially more lucrative paradigm is emerging: Commercial to Defense.
Companies originally built for agriculture, logistics, or infrastructure monitoring are now being pulled into Defense and Homeland Security (HLS). This “reverse transfer” is driven by a global shift: defense organizations increasingly prefer agile, cost-efficient, rapidly deployable technologies that have already been hardened in demanding commercial environments.
This strategic shift is best exemplified by several "dual-use" pioneers. Companies like Bluewhite, which began by automating agricultural machinery, and Prisma Photonics, originally designed for monitoring industrial infrastructure, are now finding critical applications in autonomous logistics and border security.
Finally, name 2-3 startups that, in your opinion, are likely to make a leap forward this year.
Limy (AnD portfolio) - Limy is an AI chat interface featuring a system of record for agent interactions, a way to shape agent-readable context, and clear attribution tying agent behavior to real business impact. As market adoption is rapidly growing, Limy will continue to scale quickly, growing its customer base and also expanding within the existing customers. Limy is poised for rapid, continued scaling by growing its customer base and expanding its presence within existing customers, driven by accelerating market adoption.
Playo (AnD portfolio) - Playo uses an AI gameplay foundation model, enabling fully playable 3D games to be generated in under a minute at a fraction of traditional development costs while leveraging creator-driven communities for zero-CAC distribution. The company is uniquely positioned to lead the emerging AI-native gaming category.
