May 2021

Dear Limited Partners,

For those of you whom I have not had the pleasure of meeting yet, my name is Dafna Winocur Biran and I’m the Tel Aviv-based Partner at Janvest. As you can probably imagine, the last two weeks or so have been challenging on a personal level as the country has come under fire from rockets launched out of Gaza. At the fear of getting into politics, I’m going to refrain from offering my commentary on the conflict itself and focus more on how we Israelis and our portfolio entrepreneurs more specifically are coping and making sure we keep business as usual.

On Monday the 10th at around 8 PM Israel time, all three of us Janvest partners were on a pitch with a Tel Aviv-based entrepreneur working on what we believe to be an exciting voice technology. The conversation was going well when suddenly this entrepreneur got up and ran off screen leaving her Zoom live. In that instant I too realized that the air raid sirens were going off and got up quickly to grab my baby boy from his crib, my dog, and my husband as we rushed out of the apartment on the 2nd floor to our bomb shelter in the basement. Thanks to the advance warning system in Israel, when rockets are launched we have about 90 seconds to get to a shelter, which is enough time but there is no room for error. Unfortunately, this is the reality to which we Israelis have become accustomed from our army service and from different wars and operations throughout our civilian lives – so, we know the drill.

It is also important to mention that since 2011 we have had the Iron Dome air defense system, a mobile all-weather anti-rocket battery that was developed in Israel and designed to intercept and destroy short-range projectiles. As someone who spent her military service operating the U.S.-made Patriot anti-aircraft missile system, I can appreciate the accuracy and efficacy of this unique Israeli technology.

And that brings me to the main point I wanted to share with you, which is how strong and determined the Israeli tech ecosystem is to get our jobs done. It is precisely times like these that shapes our resolve, our drive, and our resilience – the same resilience that got us through the last economic downturn and the COVID pandemic.

At Janvest, despite some of the distractions from the conflict, we have been working hard and the activity in just the last ten days has been tremendous. Here are a few highlights:

·        Janvest committed to lead or co-lead the seed rounds in two new Israeli founded start-ups bringing the total number of new deals we are working on to four – the highest number of parallel investments in our history

·        U.S. Fortune 1000 strategic investor commits to a Series A round being raised by one of our cyber security businesses

·        One of our fastest growing portfolio companies had to expand their round by 10% to accommodate investor demand

·        A portfolio company reported 500% growth from Q1 to Q2 nearly a month before the quarter ended

I’ll end by saying that despite the positive things that are happening both at the fund and portfolio company level the country is at an inflection point.  I am sad to see the extremist groups amongst Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs fighting each other and damaging the beautiful co-existence and harmony that we have established here in Israel over so many years. But alongside that it fills me with pride and joy to see that there are good people on both sides, the majority, reaching out to help one another. It is my hope that the current ceasefire holds and that we start the process of healing and returning to normal life.

- Dafna Winocur Biran