Viola Ventures

🚀 New Investment Alert 🚀 When we meet a disruptive AI Infrastructure company with a rocket founding team - we're all in. Today we announce our participation in TYLsemi round, as they emerge from stealth with $43M in funding to build the first full-stack chiplet platform for AI infrastructure and permanently disrupt the semiconductor industry. AI silicon is bottlenecked by how long it takes to build the chip. TYLsemi believes there's a better way with standards-based, production-ready chiplets you can integrate directly into your design. We're excited to join Mohit Gupta - a formerly Alphawave Semi VP who brings extensive and deep know how in this space. Zvika Orron

Congratulations to the incredible team at CardinalOps on joining Cribl. What started as a bold vision to reinvent Detection Engineering has become a leading company shaping the future of modern security operations. This is not only a great outcome for the company, but also for the Israeli cyber ecosystem --> Cribl is establishing its Israeli cybersecurity center through this acquisition and plans to grow its local team, creating more opportunities for world-class cyber talent in Israel. Proud to be part of your journey, Michael Mumcuoglu and Yair Manor (Kuszpet), for this milestone! We couldn't be prouder.

Not another community. Not another collaboration. Something interesting is in the works. We can’t share the details just yet… but if you’re building in cyber, you’ll want to see what’s coming. Collective , Matan Agazan, Oz Levy, Alon Cinamon

Every year before Black Hat, the same question starts hitting our inbox: "𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬?" The best dinners, founder meetups, VC cocktails, and CISO gatherings are usually buried across dozens of WhatsApp groups, Slack channels, and private invites. So this year, we decided to put them all in one place. Introducing 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐇𝐚𝐭 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐚𝐫 🚀 : A searchable directory of Black Hat 2026 side events, organized by host and event type. If you're heading to Vegas, hopefully this saves you a few hours (and helps you discover a few events you would've otherwise missed). 🥷 👉 Link in the first comment. Know about an event we missed? Add it or drop it in the comments, and we'll update the list.

Does an MBA still matter in the age of AI.....? Israel is known for the classic 8200-to-startup path, especially in cybersecurity. But recently, we're seeing another wave of founders emerge: entrepreneurs who chose not to skip business school and instead built companies after earning MBAs from leading institutions such as Harvard University, Stanford University, INSEAD, and others. Alex Shmulovich, Partner at Viola Ventures and President of the INSEAD Alumni Association in Israel, mapped 125 Israeli founders with international MBAs who have collectively: Founded 173 companies Raised nearly $14B Generated approximately $28B in exits to date The most interesting takeaway? 1. MBA founders recommend pursuing an international MBA today more than ever. 2. Despite AI making it easier, faster, and cheaper than ever to build and distribute technology products, they believe the real value of these programs has only increased. 3. The biggest advantage isn't the coursework. It's the exposure to diverse people, new markets, and, above all, different ways of thinking. 4. Another striking finding: the time between graduation and founding a first company has collapsed from an average of 12 years to less than one year. Today's graduates are launching companies almost immediately after completing their MBA. If you'd like to read the full report, you'll find the link in the first comment.

Proud to announce Lama AI's Series A round, bringing the company's total funding to over $20 million. One can vibe code many things. Embedded vertical FinTech isn't one of them, and Lama.ai is living proof, with >3x year-over-year growth. The company has successfully built the three pillars critical to ensuring defensibility: proprietary data, regulatory depth, and distribution, each purposely built with a layer of trust around it, which has brought dozens of community and regional banks onto its platform. Excited to welcome new investors - EJF Capital LP and Fin Capital, alongside existing investors from Hetz Ventures, 1st & Main Growth Partners, and SixThirty Ventures. Excited for what's ahead Ran Magen and Omri Yacubovich 🚀 Omry Ben David

"We want to build the most significant prevention platform, beyond cloud security, and we're going to do it fast!" 🚀 Don't you just 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 founders who think big? Ron Arbel, CEO of Aryon Security, is one of them. In his interview with Zvika Orron, who led Aryon’s seed round, he shares why they decided to build a new category instead of a better mousetrap, how the company is winning the prevention category, and what attracted industry leaders like Shlomo Kramer, George Kurtz, and Datadog Ventures to join its Series A. Link to the full interview in the first comment Ariel Litmanovich Shira Zeltner Weiss Yair Ladizhensky

𝐃𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠. Yet, just over a year after emerging from stealth, Aryon Security has demonstrated not only the need for 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, but also its potential to become the category's defining company. The exceptional syndicate of leading venture firms and renowned cyber investors is a strong testament to the team's execution, vision, and the tremendous opportunity ahead. We welcome Brightmind Partners, Datadog Ventures, Shlomo Kramer’s new fund Skinos Ventures, George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike; Robert Herjavec; Yevgeny Dibrov, CEO of Armis; and Nadir Izrael, CTO of Armis and Blumberg Capital Capita, to the winning team. Ron Arbel, Ariel Litmanovich, Yair Ladizhensky, Shira Zeltner Weiss, and all the amazing Aryon gang - we couldn't be more proud to be on this journey with you and to build a category leader in prevention. Alon Cinamon, Hilly Rejwan Sorek, Zvika Orron #Cyber

𝐍𝐘𝐂 𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐎 𝐓𝐨𝐮𝐫: 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 🚀 🇺🇸 There's no substitute for getting founders, CISOs, investors, and security leaders in the same room for candid, practical conversations. As AI transforms the security landscape and accelerates the pace of change, we connected our portfolio founders with leading CISOs and security operators to help them sharpen their products, challenge assumptions, and gain a deeper understanding of evolving customer needs. Special thanks to all the CISOs and Security leaders who joined and openly shared their perspectives, and to our Partners at Evolution VC and Primary for collaborating on these events. If building something in Cyber, reach out to Alon Cinamon If you're a CISO, we'd love to have you on our network run by Hilly Rejwan Sorek Aryon Security, Addressable.io, Foundational, PlainID, Ron Arbel, Ariel Litmanovich, Shira Zeltner Weiss, Ben Diamant, Yael Fraiman, Shachaf Turteltaub

Viola Ventures at #NYC TECH WEEK by a16z 🇺🇸 Wow, what an evening to remember! It was great to bring together founders, investors, and corporate leaders in one room to celebrate with the Israeli tech community in NYC. Thanks to our partners at Valley Bank, Shibolet & Co., Viola Credit, and Israeli Mapped in NY. Looking forward to continuing to support the growing Israeli tech ecosystem in New York and beyond. ❤️ Omry Ben David, Alon Cinamon, Guy Franklin #NYCTechWeek #IsraeliTech #Startups #VentureCapital #AI #Founders #ViolaVentures