Celebrity chef Assaf Granit joins Israel’s deep-tech investment scene
Chef partners with IL Ventures to rethink hospitality and catering.
Chef Assaf Granit, who already holds a long list of catering contracts with high-tech companies, is deepening his grip on Israel’s growth engine. Calcalist has learned that Granit, owner of the Machneyuda culinary group, is joining the venture capital fund IL Ventures. Granit will serve as a strategic adviser to the fund, which specializes in deep-tech investments and is currently raising $100 million for its second fund.
Granit’s aim, together with IL Ventures partners Elad Frenkel and Yoni Heilbronn, is to invest in technologies that could transform the hospitality, catering, and hotel industries, sectors that have seen relatively little technological disruption to date.
These industries are currently grappling with a chronic labor shortage and are increasingly seeking innovative solutions, including robotics, to address the challenge. Granit recently addressed the issue in an interview with Calcalist, saying: “The shortage of workers exists in this field as in all fields. It is going to change soon, because of the AI revolution. Many people will have to return to a labor market that relies on creation and manual work. Right now, the situation in Israel is no different from the rest of the world, it is difficult to find waiters, bartenders, and cooks.”
Granit’s exposure to the high-tech industry has grown in recent years after winning a series of tenders to provide catering services to employees of companies such as Nvidia, Wix, Rapyd, and Lightricks. The connection between Granit and the fund’s partners emerged by chance during a collaboration with Verstill, one of IL Ventures’ portfolio companies. Verstill has developed technology designed to streamline alcoholic beverage production by shortening aging times and enabling more precise control over flavors.
The Israeli company already works with beer and wine producers worldwide, as well as hotel chains and chef-led restaurants, an environment that caught Granit’s attention. Granit is known not only as a chef but also as a proponent of culinary entrepreneurship.
Heilbronn and Frenkel are currently completing investments from IL Ventures’ first fund, which manages $30 million, and have begun raising the second fund, expected to reach $100 million. IL Ventures focuses on deep technologies in areas such as robotics, logistics, AI-driven digital transformation, and supply chains. The fund typically invests at the earliest stages, primarily Seed rounds, with an emphasis on startups bringing advanced technologies into traditional industries.
Founded four years ago, IL Ventures has invested in several companies in addition to Verstill, including CaPow, which develops wireless charging solutions for robots in motion and raised $15 million from Toyota last year; Cybord, which uses AI to identify failures and defects in electronic components; and Pickommerce, which has developed an autonomous picking and packaging robot for integration into online commerce operations.
