Venture capital investor and former NBA star Omri Casspi has raised another $100 million for his fund Swish Ventures to invest in high profile Israeli unicorns like Eon, Upwind, Tenzai and Irregular and US companies like Cognition and Applied Compute.
Casspi, who has teamed up with prominent US investors like Peter Thiel, Joshua Kushner, Joe Lonsdale, Elad Gil and Sean Maguire, and serial entrepreneurs like Ofir Ehrlich, Amiram Shachar, and Roi Tiger, has built a portfolio in a short period of time that includes a large concentration of high-value, fast-growing companies. The new opportunity fund will allow Swish to continue to maintain its holdings in later stages of fund raising for companies and benefit from their continued appreciation. Casspi has a high proportion of unicorns in its portfolio for a venture capital fund that is just three years old.
The fund, which was raised mostly from existing investors in Swish Ventures – senior partners in prominent venture capital funds, including Sean Maguire from Sequoia – has already invested in the latest financing round of Eon, an Israeli unicorn that deals with data backup for AI processing and raised $300 million last week at a valuation of $4 billion.
Swish also holds shares in Cognition AI, the US AI giant that acquired the automated software development engine WIndsurf, and Amiram Shachar’s Upwind Security, which was in talks to be acquired by Datadog for $1 billion, and the promising startup Tenzai, which raised $75 million last month.
Casspi’s network of connections has underpinned Swish’s achievements. It is usually the only small fund among giants in seed rounds. In Tenzai it invested alongside Greylock, Lux Capital and Battery Ventures and in the Israeli AI lab Irregular it invested alongside Sequoia and Redpoint.
“We received motivation from our entrepreneurs and also from the investors to continue investing in companies and to increase our commitment to them down the road,” Casspi tells “Globes.” “We announced the establishment of the fund and completed its raising within a few weeks and in a relatively short period. The fund has matured relatively rapidly, but has been built carefully starting with our first fund in 2022 (the Sheva fund), and until today, what guides us is to be a partner to our entrepreneurs, in Israel and the US.”
In the wake of this fund raising, the total assets under management of Casspi and his funds in the tech sector is $300 million, which includes the Swish seed fund, which was raised last year totaling $63 million; the Sheva fund, which he founded in 2022 with David Citron for $35 million; and other dedicated investments outside the funds, which are estimated to be worth about $100 million. The new opportunity fund plans to make about eight investments in the fields of cybersecurity, technology infrastructure and AI, with an average investment of about $10 million.
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Casspi does not reveal the identities of the investors in the fund and makes do with a general statement: “The biggest names in US venture capital funds and partners in funds,” but it can be estimated that his connections with top funds such as Founders Fund, 8VC, Sequoia, Thrive and Lux Capital helped him in this. Casspi adds that in addition to the regular investors in Swish, funds that engage in philanthropy in the world of life sciences have also joined the Opportunity Fund.
According to the venture capital fund website PitchBook, among the limited investors in Swish are also serial entrepreneurs Amiram Shachar, Ofir Ehrlich, Alon Arvatz and Gal David – all of whom raised capital from the fund for their startups. The connection to prominent serial entrepreneurs is also related to the high concentration of unicorns in the portfolio. “The main strength of the fund for an investor who came from basketball, with no background in startups and venture capital, actually comes from our entrepreneurs. This is our bread and butter and is the major factor that determines. We try to work closely with them because this is what will ultimately bring the next companies and the next entrepreneurs. It’s a small industry where everyone talks to everyone else and works with top-notch funds.”
Cybersecurity and AI
Casspi, who since the founding of the fund has been playing in the crowded and expensive field of prominent Israeli cybersecurity companies as well as in the field of Israeli serial entrepreneurs, enjoys extensive connections with the giant funds at an interesting time. According to a report by the cybersecurity fund YL Ventures, for the first time in Israeli tech, US funds have surpassed Israeli funds in seed investments in Israeli cybersecurity, with 44 seed round investments compared with 35 from Israeli funds. The entry of giant funds like Sequoia, Greylock and Lux into such early stages of companies also brings with it an increase in value and the possibility of a bubble in Israeli cybersecurity.
“It’s a very competitive market, but I don’t know if the word cybersecurity bubble is correct in this case,” says Casspi. “For each company the valuation is derived from the market in which the company operates, the exit potential, the identity of the entrepreneurs and the adoption of the product in the market. Even when the value is very high, there is a very large market potential and team. I began my journey in venture capital in 2022 when high-tech was at a low, which continued into 2023 and today we see the tectonic changes in the market, the technological upheaval that allows new companies to replace so many veteran players. And ultimately, the size of the investment is not a factor but the growth potential of the company. If you invested in SpaceX, even 5% of it could provide you with billions.”
Casspi’s network of connections in US venture capital – Sean Maguire, Joshua Kushner and Peter Thiel – are close to the Republican Party, economically conservative, and sympathetic to Israel. Casspi talks about the influx of giant American funds into Israel, and cybersecurity companies in particular. “These global funds have been investing here since the beginning of the war, and they are present here in a very high concentration, they are very aggressive and they also have the ability to help entrepreneurs in the US, and they are looking for the best cybersecurity deals here.
“They understand that there is a magic circle here. Talents leave the army, found companies that are acquired, and today they are already second- or third-time entrepreneurs who found even better companies. I have no doubt that the next $100 billion AI and cybersecurity companies will come out of Israel – we see parent companies here that can “disrupt” more mature industries. Unfortunately, we see this less in the worlds outside of cybersecurity and AI here.”
Did Israel miss the AI revolution?
Casspi: “I don’t think anyone expected Israel to play a prominent role in developing large language models. In this game, in terms of capital expenditures (capex) and the competition for talent, the US has a prominent position, and it is difficult for Israeli companies to compete with an ambition like OpenAI’s to invest a trillion dollars in the next five years, but we are very strong in optimizations, applications and of course in cybersecurity for AI. I expect the army, which invests heavily in cybersecurity and produces excellent cybersecurity people, to make a significant change towards AI, and this will lead to Israel’s future leadership in the field of data centers, energy and neo-cloud.
You move in the right circles in the US, but Israel was hit hard in Europe and the Gulf during the war, including by sports associations.
“It is not right for us Israelis to cancel relations with European investors who have pulled away, but rather to keep the door open, and as business and professional companies to show them where they went wrong. I am happy that around the table in the companies we invest in, there is a pro-Israel team, sitting and planning to keep it that way. Our investors are very optimistic about Israel.”
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on December 11, 2025.
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