VC Survey 2026
"Geopolitical shifts reinforce that Israeli tech is fundamentally resilient, and the innovation engine here is hard to replicate"
Liran Grinberg, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Team8, joined CTech for its 2026 VC Survey.
“Recent geopolitical shifts reinforced something we’ve long believed: Israeli tech is fundamentally resilient, and the innovation engine here is hard to replicate. What’s unique about this ecosystem is that regulation rarely becomes a real blocker to building,” said Liran Grinberg, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Team8.
Asked whether the geopolitical lessons of recent years has pushed Israeli startups to build independent tech stacks to reduce reliance on global platforms, he noted that the response to conflict "hasn’t been isolation; it’s been smart diversification."
"We continue to build alongside our globally diverse village of leaders for perspective, feedback, and go-to-market advantage. And we see our portfolio operating globally, forming multiple partnerships and alliances across markets,” he said.
“If anything, the volatility made the ecosystem stronger - more adaptive, more durable, and more innovative, without losing Israel’s ability to stay deeply connected to the world’s leading platforms and decision-makers.“
Following the turbulence of recent years and the stabilization of 2025, the Israeli tech ecosystem is entering a new era: The Next Leap. Grinberg joined CTech to share insights for its VC Survey 2026.
You can read the entire interview below.
Fund ID
Fund Name: Team8
Total Assets Under Management: $1.5B
Partners/Managers: Liran Grinberg, Yuval Shachar, Sarit Firon, Rakefet Russak Aminoach, Amir Zilberstein, Aviad Harell, Assaf Mischari, Alon Huri, Varda Shalev, Roy Heldshtein, Israel Grimberg, Galia Beer-Gabel, Asaf Azulay, Dror Grof, Hadar Siterman Norris, Ronen Assia, Adm. Mike Rogers, Ori Yankelev, Dr. Eldad Rom, Matthew J. Schoenfeld, Ori Barzilay, Demetrios L. Kouzoukas, Yuval Tal
Notable Portfolio Companies: Claroty, Port, Act, Classiq, Koi, Ox, Finout, C8, Popai, Clover, Mate, Lumia, Fundgaurd, Reindeer AI, Bluespine, and more
Notable Exits: Talon (Palo Alto), Dig (Palo Alto), Gem (Wiz), Curv (Paypal), Illusive (Proofpoint), Portshift (Cisco), Sygnia (Temasek) and more
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?
The key driver of premium valuations will be the combination of growth and efficiency. The market continues to reward companies that can grow fast, but only if they do so with disciplined capital usage and strong underlying economics. In highly competitive markets, growth is key—but it’s the ability to scale while managing burn responsibly that separates category leaders from the rest.
As an early-stage perspective, typically pre-revenue, it ultimately starts with the team and the market. With AI unlocking opportunities across nearly every sector, the biggest winners will come from a strong team–market fit: founders who deeply understand their space and can move with speed and adaptability. In the age of AI, dynamic, agile teams that can continuously learn and evolve will be best positioned to turn early momentum into durable, high-value businesses.
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?
While every vertical will eventually move toward autonomous, agentic systems, the real gating factor isn’t capability—it’s trust. The first verticals to fully trust AI with independent decision-making will be those where outcomes are measurable, feedback loops are fast, and decisions can be bound by clear rules—such as operations, IT, and certain back-office functions. That said, the bigger opportunity lies in what I’d call Trust Middleware. Enterprises won’t jump straight from copilots to fully autonomous agents. The transition will happen through “co-worker agents” that act independently day-to-day, but collaborate with humans at critical decision points. Building the middleware that enables oversight, auditability, escalation, and alignment with business intent will be what ultimately unlocks broad, cross-industry adoption of autonomous agents.
The Efficiency Leap: In the era of AI-driven hyper-productivity, is the traditional correlation between 'Headcount Growth' and 'Company Success' permanently broken?
AI is clearly letting companies move faster. This doesn’t mean smaller teams, but rather teams that achieve much more. Hiring the right people will remain a key core ingredient of great companies.
Teams can get a lot more done, a lot faster, but you still need the professionals, and you increasingly need new roles as well, including the now-common AI leaders inside growing startups. AI has reshaped certain jobs and created entirely new ones.
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?
Not necessarily ignored, but the claim that Israel “missed the AI boom” is simply misleading. We’re seeing real momentum and exceptional teams building and innovating in what we call AI infrastructure - the foundational layer that enables AI adoption inside enterprises. This vertical will be the backbone of what AI can truly deliver in production, and it’s shaping up to be Israel’s next innovation engine.
Finally, name 2-3 startups that, in your opinion, are likely to make a leap forward this year.
We continue to see strong momentum in Israeli tech across all four of our focus areas, with particularly sharp pull in cybersecurity as AI increasingly becomes an attacker’s weapon of choice.
Nagomi (portfolio company) - leading the agentic shift in Exposure Management; continuously assuring that an enterprise’s security controls are actually effective and operating as designed. This problem was previously unsolvable at scale, but LLMs can now understand the missing context and reason about it autonomously.
Akeyless (portfolio company) - provides the core infrastructure for managing machine identities. As software—and now AI agents—scale rapidly, identity is a critical layer of trust, making Akeyless a key building block of the emerging trust middleware for autonomous systems.
Port (portfolio company) - recently announced a $100M Series C, where we doubled down after leading earlier rounds.
