“It’s hard to generalize founder attributes across different geographies, but there’s something to be said for the urgency with which Israeli founders tackle problems,” explained Teddie Wardi, managing partner at Insight Partners. “They usually move very quickly to iterate and get a solution to market. The ‘done is better than perfect’ attitude often helps these founders and startups get an early head start in a new category.”
Insight Partners is a New York-based private equity and venture capital firm with nearly $100 billion in AUM. Founded in New York in 1995, the firm works with American and Israeli founders and helps them scale their companies.
Wardi joined CTech as part of its IL Tech series in NY to discuss what Israelis could learn if they choose to do business in the US.
Name and type of organization: Insight Partners, a private equity and venture capital firm.
Main fields of investment: Insight’s bread and butter is software. Insight finds and invests in the best ScaleUps: companies maturing out of start-up mode that need capital and market expertise to support growth. Our myopic focus on software and internet business helps us win across domains, supporting horizontal and vertical leaders to help them expand internationally, capture market share and scale through successful growth milestones.
Names of directors/managing partners: 35 General Directors and 11 Principals.
Partners and/or other sponsors: Insight is backed by some of the largest and most sophisticated global institutions and investors.
Year of foundation/beginning of operations in NY: Insight was founded in 1996 in New York City.
What types of Israeli startups/entrepreneurs are you interested in?
As a company, we invest extensively in software from seed stage to outright purchase. Personally, I focus on B2B software across the stack, with a bias towards the early growth side. Israel is well known for cyber security, but we are seeing increasing numbers of software startups in other categories, from developer tools to vertical applications.
Why invest in an Israeli company in New York? What advantages do these companies have? How is the New York market different from the Israeli market?
Insight was one of the first global investors to take notice of the Israel market and as such we have a long history of investing in Israeli companies. This goes back to success stories like Wix, as well as more recent ones like SentinelOne and Monday. Israeli software companies tend to open operations in the US very early in their life cycle. We found that Israel produces world-class founding teams that move fast, hire great talent, and build category-winning companies. The density of tech talent in Israel is unrivaled by almost any other startup hub in the world, including New York.
How are Israeli entrepreneurs/startups different from their local counterparts?
It’s hard to generalize the attributes of founders across different geographies, but there is something to be said for the urgency with which Israeli founders tackle problems. They usually move very quickly to iterate and get a solution to market. The “done is better than perfect” attitude often helps these founders and startups get an early head start in a new category.
Two suggestions for Israeli businessmen on what to do in New York:
My first suggestion is to take advantage of business networks in New York outside of other Israeli founders. There is a lot of activity today in the New York City ecosystem with companies in a wide variety of verticals. The diversity of founders and companies is not available to the same extent in Israel, so it is smart to take advantage of it.
Second, I would suggest looking at research incentive programs in the region, such as START-UP NY, and exploring leveraging relationships with the many local colleges and universities.
Two tips for Israeli businessmen on what not to do in New York:
Don’t rush into hiring senior staff without doing an adequate amount of diligence and making sure it’s suitable. The success rate of initial US executive hires for Israeli companies entering the market is unusually low.
In recent years, I have seen more Israeli founders attempt to open their US operation part-time, which can be challenging. I strongly believe that one of the founders should completely move here to ensure success.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how much has the Covid pandemic impacted your work?
I would say 7. The COVID pandemic caused a lot of distortion in the markets, driving demand for some categories and slowing adoption in others. I think the more permanent effect is the growing prevalence of fully remote and strongly hybrid companies. This has been a positive for many companies in terms of being able to find experienced talent. On the other hand, it has caused challenges for many in adapting their ways of working.
Examples of 2-3 most successful investments:
SentinelOne – We led the SentinelOne D-Series in mid-2019. Since then, it’s been a great growth story in disrupting the existing endpoint security industry and beyond into an “XDR” future. For me personally, it has been one of the most rewarding experiences to be able to work with the incredible team. We also led its Series E on the road to an IPO that happened in mid-2021.
Global Papaya – we partnered with Papaya Global on their Series A in late 2019. It has been an exciting ride as the team is led by inspiring CEO/Founder Eynat Guez who has transformed Global Payroll into a streamlined software delivery offering. We also continue our investment in Papaya Global leading its Series D with a valuation of more than $3 billion.
Wizard – we co-run Wiz Series A during the height of COVID in 2020. The extremely experienced team behind Wiz had already created something disruptive in cybersecurity with their previous company, and they intended to do it again. Wiz has been one of the fastest adopting cybersecurity products we’ve ever seen, and the team is just getting started. At the end of last year, we also co-led Wiz’s Series C, where the company was valued at $6 billion.