CTalk“Israel's agility, especially in times of war, is going to make it a leader in defensetech”
CTalk
“Israel's agility, especially in times of war, is going to make it a leader in defensetech”
Perri Finkelstein, Head of Business Development and Value Creation at Protego Ventures, shared her insights with CTech at Tech TLV
Perri Finkelstein
(Photo: Streame)
“Necessity is the mother of all invention, right? The world is changing and Israel is not left out of that changing world,” said Perri Finkelstein, Head of Business Development and Value Creation at Protego Ventures. “Post-October 7, the need for advanced technology really grew and what we saw very early on was that the entire way that we fight wars was changing.”
Protego Ventures is a new Israel-based venture capital fund investing in Israeli defense technology. It invests in early growth companies, typically Round A and above, and usually with companies who already have product market fit and are already working with different government agencies in Israel.
“The way we fought wars and the way that we handled Homeland Security or defense-related issues was thrown out: Now you have this new playbook where tech is getting smarter, soldiers and equipment are getting smarter, drones are getting smarter, jamming capabilities are increasing,” she continued. “And for us to keep up, we need to be accelerating this kind of development.”
Finkelstein confirmed how in the last eight months the firm has already seen 63 companies, the majority of whom were pre-seed and seed stage companies either deployed to reserve duty after October 7 or operating devices remotely, and saw a gap in terms of what was seen on the battlefield and what is needed to maintain safety while maintaining a competitive edge.
“That agility, especially in times of war, is what I believe is going to make Israel a leader in the space,” she added.
You can watch the whole exchange in the video above.
