Omri Casspi, a former NBA athlete, has raised $60 million for his most recent venture fund, Swish Ventures, to invest in early-stage cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and AI businesses
The fund anticipates investing $5 million to $7 million per transaction in 10 companies.
Casspi’s second fund, Swish Ventures, was established in 2022 following the successful launch of Sheva Capital, a $36 million fund. Casspi stated that he is responsible for the management of Sheva’s portfolio following the conclusion of its investment period.
“I am actively engaged in the ongoing development of our companies; however, we will not be raising an additional fund under Sheva,” Casspi stated in an interview with TechCrunch, which clarified his role in managing both funds.
Ophir Ehrlich, the founder of EON, Amiram Shachar, the founder of Upwind, and Gal Ben-David and Alon Arvatz, the co-founders of PointFive, are among the numerous founders who were previously supported by Sheva and are now investors in Swish Ventures.
Sequoia Capital is an anchor investor in the fund, and they are joining other institutional investors.
According to Casspi, Swish Ventures will prioritize seed investments in “startups led by seasoned entrepreneurs who have the potential to build market-defining companies,” which is comparable to Sheva’s thesis.
Nevertheless, Swish Ventures is concentrating on cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and AI, which is a departure from Sheva’s broader scope, which encompassed fintech and web3 startups in addition to cybersecurity startups.
The decision is indicative of the growing interest of investors in cybersecurity and AI, particularly in the United States and Israel, where Casspi has concentrated his investments.
In the first six months of 2024, Israeli startups raised over half of their venture capital in the cybersecurity sector, which is specifically recognized as an asset of Israel, according to Startup Nation Central.
In the same vein, Israeli companies such as Wiz, which declined a $23 billion acquisition offer from Google and Eon and achieved unicorn status within a year of its inception, demonstrate the country’s preference for second-time builders in the cloud security sector.
In 2019, Microsoft acquired Wiz’s former startup, Adallom, and Amazon acquired Eon’s most recent startup, CloudEndure.
Casspi has invested his own funds in Wiz, while Eon is a company in the Sheva portfolio.
Casspi, the previous captain of Israel’s national basketball team and the first Israeli to compete in the NBA, is one of numerous athletes who are currently venture capitalists.
Last week, Giannis Antetokoumpo became the most recent sports figure to enter the venture capital industry. Serena Williams is the proprietor of Serena Ventures, Kevin Durant is the proprietor of 35V, Stephen Curry is the proprietor of Penny Jar Capital, and Andre Iguodala is the proprietor of Mosaic General Partnership.
Casspi asserts that his organizations administer approximately $125 million in assets. Upwind, which today affirmed its $900 million valuation (Stephen Curry’s Penny Jar is also an investor), and PointFive, whose founders previously sold a company to Rapid7 and raised $36 million, are among the other startups in Sheva’s portfolio.
Additionally, Swish is appointing Dana Alexandrovich as an operating partner. Alexandrovich was the COO of Microsoft in Israel from 2021 to her present position, where she oversaw sales operations in the Middle East and Africa.
