Toot Shani Founding Managing Partner of Sarona Ventures
Sarona Ventures, an Israeli VC firm, has established a new fund called TechShield that is intended to promote investment in Israeli startups in a more personalized fashion. After the October 7 massacre enacted by the Hamas terrorist group in which more than 1,200 innocent people in Israel were murdered, there is a new way to show your support for the country through direct investments in its startups.
Toot Shani, the founding managing partner at Sarona Ventures, spoke with Jewish Business News about what the firm hopes to accomplish.
TechShield, says Sarona Ventures, provides investors with “certainty and confidence” to continue investing in performant Israeli companies, “gaining VC-level returns while materially driving the economy.” It is, in effect, a Reverse-Fund that selects the companies first and then opens them up to potential investors, but only after bringing “full visibility as to where your money is going.”
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And all of the firms offered to investors are already revenue generating, they have a proven track record.
In this way, explained Toot Shani, investors can choose “resilient companies that already have shown strong financials. So the investors know where their money is going giving them more of a sense of control.”
They call this a “Reverse Fund,” instead of just investing in the general pool offered by VC funds, they decided to reverse this process by first selecting the startups and then grouping them into one fund so that people can know exactly where their money goes, as opped to traditional funds that buy and sell over and over again.
So, TechShield is intended to create an investment structure that allows complete transparency and certainty for the investors
For their first Reverse-Fund, TechShield chose seven VC-backed companies, with ARRs of $400,000 to $4 million and month-over-month growth of over 10%. It groups these firms together and is raising a $7-9 million fund, to be launched by February 29th, investing $600k – $2 million in each company.
At the beginning of the second week after the October 7 attack it became “very clear to us that supporting the evacuees and more is critical, but there is also the aspect of the economy,” she added.
But this is not a philanthropic enterprise. They understand the difference between philanthropy and investments and chose not to structure TechShield as a non-profit organization so that people can “invest while also making an impact.”
They hope to support up to 50 companies in total.
Shani also explained that one of the main reasons Israel has been able to have “so many alliances with other countries over the years is our strong economy and cutting edge technology,” and that at Sarona they have a “duty to help keep Israel’s economy strong.”
Every new job created in the field of high-tech creates another three jobs around it – services, human resources people, etc. – so expanding high-tech means many more jobs are created. And the high-tech people then spend money thereby creating even more jobs.
And Sarona Ventures itself is a Zionist firm committed to helping improve and strengthen the State of Israel.
It started in 2017 as a small single family office founded by a French Jewish family that moved to live in Israel. It invested in no fewer than 7 startups that would go on to become unicorns – startups worth at least $1 billion.
“Besides investing we have a very warm place in our heart for Israel,” said Shani. “We see Israel as a very important part of a Jewish person’s life in this world.”
Toot Shani, Founding Managing Partner of Sarona Ventures, evolved from Bouaziz Family Office. Toot leads a robust portfolio with 7 unicorns (Deel, Notion, Verbit, & more) and drives innovation on a global scale. Following the recent period, Toot leads TechShield, a new ‘Reverse Fund’ model that provides investors with a framework to continue investing in Israeli tech with higher certainty.
TechShield was initiated by Sarona Ventures, a global VC fund and tech ecosystem with global portfolio including in the Startup Nation. Joined by Israeli and American VC funds including Ibex Investments, Altair Capital and in collaboration with over 60 international VC Funds, Funds of Funds and Family Offices, who back the Israeli hi-tech and understand its ever-lasting resilience. Together, guarantee the highest level of company selection and diligence, as well as assurance for all non-institutionalized investors. TechShield is relying on a technology, fintech and compliance partnership with Fundit, a leading alternative financing platform that is providing its licensed technology for secure, rapid and streamlined money transfer for investors from anywhere in the world.
