YL Ventures

YL Ventures is an American-Israeli venture capital firm that specializes in seed stage cybersecurity investments.[1]

YL Ventures
IndustryVenture Capital Firm
Founded2007
FoundersYoav Leitersdorf
John Quigley
HeadquartersSan Francisco and Tel Aviv
Websitewww.ylventures.com

Investment firm

YL Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm led by managing partner Yoav Leitersdorf, who founded the firm with John Quigley in 2007,[2] along with Israel and U.S. partners Ofer Schreiber[3] and John Brennan.[4][5] The firm has headquarters in San Francisco and Tel Aviv with an advisory board more than 85 different venture advisors.[6][7] A main focus of YL Ventures is to introduce Israeli cybersecurity start-ups to the American market and develop a U.S. customer base.[8][1]

Venture Advisory Board

In 2018, YL Ventures established its Venture Advisory Board. In 2021, the Venture Advisory Board includes over 85 global CISOs and cybersecurity executives from Fortune 100 and high-growth companies such as Microsoft, Intuit, Zscaler, Kraft Heinz, Netflix, Nike, Samsung Electronics, Box, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Markel Corporation, Optiv, GSK, HashiCorp, Atlassian, Ross Stores, Burberry, Campbell Soup Company, CyAlliance, Juniper Networks, GrubHub, NHL, Nielsen and others.[9][7] The Venture Advisors assist YL Ventures vet investments and provide ideation support to entrepreneurs during the firm due diligence process before the investment occurs. They also help the firm’s portfolio founders define their product development, product-market fit and go-to-market strategies.[7]

Finances

As of 2020, YL Ventures manages over $300 million across four funds, including a $127 million fund raised in 2019 [10] and a $75 million fund raised in 2018.[6][11]

Exits
Company Field Description Exit Year Exit Details
Twistlock Virtual Container Security Enterprise platform for cloud native workloads 2019 Acquired by Palo Alto Networks for $410M[12]
Upstream Commerce Online Retail Intelligence Retail pricing optimization and intelligence 2018 Acquired by Walmart (Flipkart) for an undisclosed amount[13]
Hexadite Cybersecurity Orchestration and Automation Automated incident response solution 2017 Acquired by Microsoft for $100M[14]
Seculert Cloud-based Malware Protection Attack detection and analytics platform 2017 Acquired by Radware for an undisclosed amount[15]
Firelayers Cloud Access Security Broker IT protection for cloud applications 2016 Acquired by Proofpoint for $55M[16]
BlazeMeter Performance Testing JMeter and performance testing platform for DevOps 2016 Acquired by CA Technologies for $90M[17]
AcceloWeb Web Acceleration Pioneer and leader in browsing experience optimization 2011 Acquired by Limelight Networks for an undisclosed amount[18]

References
  1. "YL Ventures, a specialist in Israeli cybersecurity startups, has closed its fourth fund with $120 million". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-01-26.
  2. "YL Ventures raises $75m third Israel VC fund". Globes.
  3. "YL Ventures raising third Israeli VC fund". Globes.
  4. "John Brennan - Partner @ YL Ventures - Crunchbase Person Profile". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2021-01-20.
  5. Brennan, John (2020-08-13). "Navigating the critical step of making your first cybersecurity sales hire". CTECH - www.calcalistech.com. Retrieved 2021-01-20.
  6. "YL Ventures Announces Major Expansion of Venture Advisory Board". 21 August 2018.
  7. "Cybersecurity Luminaries from Microsoft, Intuit, Zscaler and Kraft Heinz join YL Ventures' Growing Venture Advisory Board to Guide Israeli Cybersecurity Startups to Success". www.businesswire.com. 2020-07-07. Retrieved 2021-01-19.
  8. "YL Ventures closes $75 million fund to bring Israeli startups to the US". Tech Crunch.
  9. FinSMEs (2018-08-21). "YL Ventures Announces Major Expansion of Venture Advisory Board". FinSMEs. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  10. "Yoav Leitersdorf: YL Ventures' founder and fighter". CTech. Calcalist. Retrieved 18 January 2021.
  11. "YL Ventures raises $27.5m second fund". Globes.
  12. "Palo Alto Networks to acquire container security startup Twistlock for $410M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  13. Leitersdorf, Yoav (2018-09-30). "Why Flipkart Is Acquiring Israel-based Upstream Commerce". CTECH - www.calcalistech.com. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  14. "Microsoft to buy Israeli security firm Hexadite, sources say for $100M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  15. "Radware Acquires Threat Detection firm Seculert | SecurityWeek.Com". www.securityweek.com. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  16. "Proofpoint buys cloud security co FireLayers". Globes. 2016-10-21. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  17. "CA Technologies to acquire Israeli startup BlazeMeter for $90 million". Haaretz.com. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  18. "Limelight Buys Web And Application Acceleration Technology Startup AcceloWeb". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
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