Team8 raises $365 million as AI widens the gap between adoption and security
The Israeli venture firm has closed a $265 million third fund and more than $100 million for follow-on investments, focusing on the infrastructure and cybersecurity layers enterprises will need as AI agents move rapidly from experimentation into production.
Team8 Capital, the venture capital arm of Team8 Group, managed by Sarit Firon and Liran Grinberg, has completed a $265 million fundraising round for its third investment fund. It has also raised more than $100 million for a fund for follow-on investments in its highest-conviction portfolio companies. With the new capital, Team8's assets under management have reached nearly $2 billion across eight funds since 2014.
The new fund has already recorded an exit even before the fundraising process was completed, following Palo Alto Networks' reported $400 million acquisition of cybersecurity company Koi Security in February 2026. In fact, nine investments have already been made from the new fund over the past year while the fundraising was still underway, and the fund has now officially closed.
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Team8 Capital team: Managing Partners Sarit Firon and Liran Grinberg, alongside Partners Ori Barzilay and Hadar Siterman.
(Photo: Omer Hacohen)
The two previous funds raised by Team8 Capital invested, among others, in Classiq, which develops software for quantum computing and has raised more than $200 million to date; FundGuard, which develops software infrastructure for the financial sector and completed a $100 million funding round, one of the largest in its field; and Port, which developed a software development platform for the agentic AI era and completed a $100 million round at an $800 million valuation. In total, Team8's portfolio companies have raised about $1 billion from venture capital investors, including about $762 million in the past year alone.
Firon, a managing partner at the fund, notes that alongside the institutional investors that participated in the new fund, Indian software giant Infosys invested in it for the first time. Infosys is also interested in Israeli startups in which Team8 has invested in the past.
"After the complex period at the height of the war in Israel, we have recently seen a return of investors to Israeli funds. They are drawn here with the understanding that innovation here is the greatest, and beyond that, concerns about the uncertainty surrounding AI are stronger today than anything else. Therefore, when they see that there are funds that understand investing in AI, they are ready to come," Firon told Calcalist.
"Today's technology is easy and cheap to develop, so what is more important is the product and the sales organization, everything needs to happen simultaneously and quickly. Therefore, today we are looking for more 'rounded' entrepreneurs, not just technologists, who are able to run on everything at the same time. It is not a matter of experience, by the way, but more of a matter of personality."
In a statement accompanying the fund announcement, Firon said AI is fundamentally changing the economics of building companies. "Developing breakthrough technology has never been easier, building a company that endures has never been harder," she said.
According to Firon, as AI capabilities evolve rapidly, competitive advantage will increasingly come from solving fundamental enterprise problems that remain relevant as the underlying technology changes.
According to Firon and Grinberg, Team8 will continue to invest exclusively in software rather than hardware, despite the current trend toward investments in chips, data centers and other physical AI infrastructure. In their view, the shift toward AI infrastructure does not mean software is becoming less important. Rather, they expect software to evolve as AI changes how products are developed and used.
The new fund will invest in Seed and Series A startups in cybersecurity, software infrastructure and AI, fintech and digital health. Its focus will include AI infrastructure, orchestration, identity, data and security, areas that Team8 believes will become increasingly important as enterprises adopt AI.
The focus on AI security is informed in part by a survey of 111 security leaders conducted at Team8's latest CISO Village Summit. The survey found that 97% of organizations have already begun adopting AI agents, while 80% are already running them in production. Yet respondents' average confidence in their ability to secure AI was just 2.32 out of 5.
The findings reflect a growing gap between the speed at which companies are deploying AI and their ability to establish the security and governance controls needed to manage it. Team8 said this gap is becoming one of the most urgent operational and security challenges for CIOs, CISOs and other enterprise technology leaders.
Against this backdrop, the new fund will focus on AI-native companies developing infrastructure and cybersecurity technologies that can help enterprises adopt AI more quickly while maintaining security and visibility.
Portfolio companies will also have access to Team8's broader company-building platform, including enterprise connections, market validation and support in areas such as company formation, go-to-market strategy, recruiting and growth.
