Appointment
NetZero Ventures appoints Avinoam Rubinstain as Venture Partner
The seasoned deep-tech entrepreneur and executive joins the venture builder fund to lead investments at the intersection of AI, energy infrastructure, and climate technologies.
NetZero Tech Ventures, an Israeli climate and energy deep-tech venture, has announced the appointment of Avinoam Rubinstain as Venture Partner. His appointment supports the firm's strategic expansion into Energy Tech for AI, an emerging investment category focused on solving the rapidly growing energy, cooling, and infrastructure challenges created by artificial intelligence.
In his new role, Rubinstain will focus on a broad spectrum of critical areas, including power generation, energy storage, thermal management, power electronics, intelligent energy systems, grid optimization, compute, Physical AI, and enabling hardware for AI data centers.
Most recently, Rubinstain served as the CEO of climate-tech company Carrar and as an advisor to ZutaCore. Previously, he founded and led Atrica, a pioneer in Carrier Ethernet solutions that raised over $200 million and was later acquired by Nokia Siemens Networks. Earlier in his career, he served as Vice President and General Manager at 3Com, where he managed business units with annual revenues exceeding $200 million.
Rubinstain also co-founded my6sense, an AI-driven media technology company, and NiceCom, which marked one of Israel's celebrated early tech exit stories. He has also previously served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) at Benchmark Capital. He holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, and an Executive MBA from Tel Aviv University.
"Artificial intelligence is creating unprecedented demand for new energy technologies," said Shmuel Kedmi, CEO of NetZero Tech Ventures. "As AI infrastructure scales globally, energy availability, efficiency, cooling, and power management are becoming critical bottlenecks. Avinoam's unique combination of experience in AI, enterprise infrastructure, thermal management, and venture creation makes him the ideal partner to lead our expansion into this fast-growing investment area."
Kedmi added: "NetZero has built a strong reputation in climate and energy deep tech. With Avinoam joining our team, we're broadening our strategy to capture the enormous opportunity emerging at the intersection of AI and energy. His experience, global network, and operational expertise will help us identify and build the next generation of category-defining companies."
"Artificial intelligence is reshaping the global energy landscape, creating entirely new opportunities for innovation at the intersection of compute, power, and sustainability," said Avinoam Rubinstain. "NetZero has built a unique platform that combines venture creation, deep scientific expertise, industrial partnerships, and hands-on support for entrepreneurs. I look forward to working with exceptional founders developing the technologies that will power the next generation of AI infrastructure while accelerating the transition to a more sustainable energy future."
Established in 2021, NetZero Tech Ventures is one of Israel’s most active investors and venture builders in climate and energy deep tech. Its backers and partners include TotalEnergies, Eren Group, Benhamou Global Ventures, DelekUS, Other Sources Energy Group, IP Innovative Power, The Blue Minds Company, and the Israel Innovation Authority.
The company’s management team includes Shmuel Kedmi, CEO; Dr. Gideon Friedmann, CTO and former Chief Scientist at the Israel Ministry of Energy; Yael Weisz Zilberman, VP of Business Development, and Inbal Tal, CFO.
NetZero's portfolio includes startups such as Chiral Energies and SolidT, both actively developing solutions for Energy for AI, alongside companies like GreenTidio, PyroH2, Starstone, CatAmmon, LC Fuels, CelluFlux, Timna Elements, Funpressor, and Fast Sense.
