On January 19, Viola Ventures, a popular Israeli venture capital company, announced that it had raised $250 million in its sixth-funding round. With new funding, the Israeli VC company now has $1.25 billion in assets under management, mostly in early-state tech firms. Viola plans to use the new funding to invest in 25-30 early-stage companies in its core industries like fintech , digital health, vertical AI and deep tech, cybersecurity, web3, SaaS 3.0 and next-gen enterprise infrastructure.
Viola Ventures has invested in several startups, including Payoneer, Verbit, Pagaya, Immunai, Outbrain, Lightricks, Redis and ironSource. According to the announcement, Viola disclosed that the eight of its portfolio companies have reached unicorn status. For instance, this month, Pagaya, a major Israeli fintech company, went public with a valuation of $8.5 billion. In June last year, IronSource, a global software company, announced its public listing with a valuation of $11 billion.
Danny Cohen, General Partner at Viola Ventures, explained why the Israeli venture capital firm is mainly investing in companies with high potential growth. He stated: “It’s not just important to invest in high-performing companies, it’s important to invest in them early on. Our track record proves we know how to identify outstanding teams, aggressively earn the first money, and then support them to unicorn status and beyond. We are confident that our sixth fund will help create the next generation of market leaders.”
What VC Firms Look for in Business Startups
The development by Viola Ventures comes at a time when numerous venture capital firms are strategically investing in startups with proven technologies and initial revenues on their products as well as generating business activities that enable them to increase stability and profitability. Most venture capital funding aims to invest part of their portfolio in firms that have potential to go public. For instance, the rising demand for cryptocurrencies has prompted venture capital funding to invest in blockchain and crypto startups. Besides that, with the booming fintech sector, fintech firms have attracted VC funding worth billions of US dollars across different sectors. Last year, venture capital funding into London-based fintech firms accounted for almost 35% of the total VC investment in Europe’s fintech sector.
