Israel's Team8 raises $365 million for AI startups backed by Walmart, Cisco

Israeli venture capital firm Team8 has secured $365 million in new funding to invest in local AI startups. The investment aims to accelerate the development of companies building essential infrastructure and software for securely managing artificial intelligence workloads.

Walmart, Cisco, Moody's, AT&T, SoftBank, and Temasek are among the prominent investors backing the fund. This latest capital injection brings Team8's total assets under management to nearly $2 billion. Infosys, a major Indian IT service provider, also joined as a new investor.

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AI is fundamentally rewriting the economics of company building. Building world-class software required years of engineering, significant capital and exceptional technical talent, today, a remarkably small team with access to frontier models can build in weeks what once took years.

The majority of the new capital, $265 million, will fuel Team8's third venture capital fund. This fund will focus on seed and Series A investments in approximately 16 Israeli-founded AI startups. These startups will operate in sectors such as cybersecurity, software infrastructure, fintech, and digital health. The fund has already seen success, having invested in Israeli cybersecurity startup Koi Security, which was acquired by Palo Alto Networks for an estimated $400 million earlier this year.

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As AI capabilities continue to evolve at a pace none of us has seen before, competitive advantage won’t come from the model underneath a product; it will come from solving fundamental enterprise problems that stay relevant across technology cycles.

An additional $100 million is allocated for follow-up investments in Team8's existing portfolio companies. "AI is fundamentally rewriting the economics of company building," said Sarit Firon, Team8 Managing Partner. "Building world-class software required years of engineering, significant capital and exceptional technical talent, today, a remarkably small team with access to frontier models can build in weeks what once took years."

Team8 plans to target founders developing AI-centric infrastructure, identity, data, and security software. The firm believes that as AI agents become more embedded in enterprise workflows, opportunities lie in the infrastructure and cybersecurity layers that enable confident adoption. "As AI accelerates change and creates real uncertainty across every enterprise, the biggest opportunities sit in the infrastructure and cybersecurity layers that let enterprises adopt this technology with confidence," stated Liran Grinberg, Team8 co-founder.

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As AI accelerates change and creates real uncertainty across every enterprise, the biggest opportunities sit in the infrastructure and cybersecurity layers that let enterprises adopt this technology with confidence.