VC Survey 2026
“Through M&A, Israel is already outperforming on liquidity”
Vertex Ventures Israel GP Tammi Bronner joins CTech to discuss Startup Nation's record-breaking M&A activity, the emergence of "Time-to-Value" as a key valuation metric, and which sectors are on the frontline for autonomous AI agents, as part of CTech's VC Survey 2026: The Next Leap.
“Through M&A, Israel is already outperforming on liquidity,” says Tami Bronner, general partner at Vertex Ventures Israel. According to Bronner, while M&A activity has remained stagnant in Europe and the U.S., “Israeli tech M&A is reaching record levels, an outcome that is remarkable, yet consistent with the resilience and execution we have witnessed firsthand from Israeli founders over years of uncertainty.” She anticipates 2026 seeing “a selective reopening of the IPO window, not a full reset.”
Following the turbulence of recent years and the stabilization of 2025, the Israeli tech ecosystem is entering a new era: The Next Leap. Bronner joined CTech to share insights for its VC Survey 2026, which invites prominent investors to discuss the topics, trends, and “leaps” expected in the year ahead.
Bronner argues that in the AI era “speed to meaningful impact is what now defines value,” establishing “Time-to-Value” as “one of the most predictive indicators of retention, expansion, and long-term valuation in AI-native products.” Further, she predicts Security Operations and IT Operations to be the first sectors “to fully trust AI with independent decision-making.” With capital having largely flowed to AI applications and models rather than the infrastructure required to ensure its reliability and safety, Bronner believes the deftness needed to solve this problem puts Israeli startups in a unique position “to play a central role in enabling the next phase of enterprise AI adoption.”
You can read the entire interview below:
Fund ID
Name of Fund: Vertex Ventures Israel
Total Assets Under Management (AUM): $1.6B
Partners/Managers: Yanai Oron, Aviad Ariel, Emauel Timor, Tami Bronner, Yoram Oron, Ran Gartenberg, David Heller
Notable Portfolio Companies (Active): Axonius, Navina, Zenity, DataRails, Quantum Art
Notable Exits: Waze, CyberArk, SolarEdge, Own, Innoviz
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?
2026 will see a selective reopening of the IPO window, not a full reset. Through M&A, Israel is already outperforming on liquidity. While M&A activity in the U.S. and Europe remains stagnant, Israeli tech M&A is reaching record levels, an outcome that is remarkable, yet consistent with the resilience and execution we have witnessed firsthand from Israeli founders over years of uncertainty. I believe that for most Israeli companies, M&A will remain the primary liquidity path, driven by sustained strategic demand for Israeli technology, alongside a small number of category leaders continuing to access public markets.
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?
Claude Cowork captures the shift clearly. Users don’t measure value by onboarding speed, but by how fast real work gets done from first interaction to completed outputs, established trust, and willingness to delegate tasks. That speed to meaningful impact is what now defines value.
In this context, Time-to-Value has become a multi-dimensional metric in the AI era and a key driver of premium valuations. It no longer measures onboarding speed alone, but how quickly users experience real, trusted impact. This includes Latency-to-Value (how fast a system produces a useful, decision-ready output), Time to First Meaningful Outcome (how long until a core job-to-be-done is completed), Time to Trust (when users act on AI output without manual verification), Time to Automation (when customers allow the system to act autonomously), and Time to Expansion (how quickly initial value translates into broader usage or higher spend).
Together, these dimensions capture not just speed, but confidence, habit formation, and depth of adoption, making Time-to-Value one of the most predictive indicators of retention, expansion, and long-term valuation in AI-native products.
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?
After closely observing and investing across multiple vertical AI markets, the supply/demand dynamics in Security Operations (SecOps) and IT Operations stand out as the first to fully trust AI with independent decision-making. These environments already operate on real-time telemetry, deterministic rules, and well-defined success and failure metrics, making them naturally suited for agentic systems once auditability is in place. Buyers in these domains are increasingly required to deploy agentic adoption, as scale, complexity, and talent shortages intensify. Israeli cyber and infrastructure startups, shaped by decades of experience in mission-critical and adversarial environments, are well positioned to deliver agents that move from recommendation to execution triaging alerts, containing threats, rolling back risky changes, and enforcing policy autonomously. This is a domain where trust is engineered, not assumed, and it plays directly to Israel’s strengths.
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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?
The biggest civilian disruption from Israel’s defense technologies will be in critical infrastructure and industrial operations, including logistics, energy, transportation, and public safety. Israel’s DefenseTech ecosystem functions as a real-world laboratory, where technologies are developed under constant operational pressure and validated before scaling commercially. Capabilities such as autonomy, sensing, AI-driven decision systems, cyber-physical security, and resilient networks translate directly from defense into civilian systems that must operate under uncertainty and strict reliability requirements. Our experience investing in dual-use companies like D-Fend Solutions highlights how technologies proven in national security environments can be rapidly adapted into mission-critical civilian applications at global scale.
The Contrarian Leap: What is one sector or trend currently ignored by the herd that you believe represents the most undervalued opportunity for the coming year?
While AI absorbed roughly half of global venture funding in 2025, capital has largely flowed toward models and applications rather than the infrastructure required to ensure reliability, safety, and accountability. What we consistently see across enterprise surveys and direct conversations is that many organizations are struggling to integrate AI into real workflows and to generate measurable ROI, while simultaneously flagging growing AI-related risks. As regulatory pressure accelerates with the EU AI Act coming into force and hundreds of AI-related bills advancing across the U.S. the need for governance, monitoring, and risk management infrastructure is becoming structural rather than optional. The skill set required to solve this problem – security, reliability, and real-time systems – is deeply embedded in the Israeli tech ecosystem, positioning Israeli startups to play a central role in enabling the next phase of enterprise AI adoption.
Finally, what are 2-3 startups that, in your opinion, are likely to make a leap forward in 2026?
1. BlinkOps (Vertex portfolio company): BlinkOps is a leading agentic platform purpose-built to run security operations through thousands of specialized agents at scale, enabling organizations to stay ahead of evolving threats with deep integration and reliable infrastructure.
2. ConvergeBio: ConvergeBio is poised to leap forward by combining cutting-edge generative AI with deep biology expertise to accelerate drug discovery, positioning it at the forefront of agentic innovation in healthcare.
3. Navina (Vertex portfolio company): Navina’s AI-driven platform is redefining clinical data workflows with agentic interfaces that accelerate insights and decision-making in healthcare, positioning it as an innovation leader in trusted, high-impact AI for care delivery.
