Appointment
Ground Up Ventures appoints Navot Volk as General Partner
Volk, who joined the firm as a Venture Partner in 2023, will lead its activity in Israel alongside founding partner David Stark. The fund manages more than $65 million across two funds.
Venture capital firm Ground Up Ventures has appointed Navot Volk as a General Partner. Volk, who has been a Venture Partner at the firm since 2023, will work from its Tel Aviv office. In his new role, he will lead the firm's activity in Israel alongside David Stark.
Ground Up Ventures was founded in 2017 by founding partners David Stark and Cory Moelis and has offices in New York and Tel Aviv. The firm invests between $500,000 and $1.5 million per company at the pre-seed and seed stages in the U.S. and Israel.
The firm manages more than $65 million across two funds. Its website currently lists 58 portfolio companies, as well as four in stealth mode, approximately 20 of them Israeli. Its Israeli holdings include defense-tech company Kela, which has reportedly raised approximately $300 million since its founding in 2024, most recently at a valuation of more than $1 billion; Komodor, which has raised $67 million; Triple Whale, which has raised $52.7 million; defense-tech company Covenant, which emerged from stealth in September with a $250 million funding round backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund and Lightspeed; and Pillar Security, which raised $9 million in a seed round.
Ground Up also participated in the initial seed round of Glass Imaging, founded by Israeli entrepreneur Ziv Attar, which OpenAI acquired in September at a valuation of more than $300 million.
Before joining Ground Up, Volk held several senior roles at Microsoft, where he helped build the company's startup program, Microsoft for Startups. The program worked with 110 companies that collectively raised approximately $700 million. At Wix, he established a new business line.
Since joining Ground Up, Volk has made six investments on behalf of the firm, including Pillar Security, Unit and Threefold.
“The earliest stage is when founders most need someone in the room with them, before there's a product, customers or data. At Ground Up we built a firm that does exactly that, and I'm glad to keep doing it with David and Cory, now as a General Partner. If you're building something that feels too early for other funds, talk to me,” said Volk.
