“My underdog mentality has encouraged me to hunt for adversity. I believe adversity – and the ability to overcome it – is the greatest signal of a successful founder.”
Gili Raanan is a distinguished cybersecurity expert who has proudly invested and mentored many of the most successful cybersecurity companies in the world, including Wiz, Armis, Fireblocks, Island, Cyera & Upwind among many others. In 2018, he founded Cyberstarts, an early-stage venture investing fund, with a clear vision: to accelerate the development and delivery of the best solutions in the cybersecurity industry.
Cybersecurity has been Gili’s life’s work since he served in Unit 8200, the acclaimed Israeli Intelligence Agency within the Israeli Defense Forces. He won the coveted Israel Defense Presidential Prize in 1996 and the Israeli Intelligence Forces Innovation Award in 1992 for his decade of service.
An engineer by training, Gili is also a founder – widely recognized as the inventor of the CAPTCHA, one of the world’s most popular security algorithms. He also helped build the first WAF (web application firewall). He holds 10 other US patents in the fields of security and application management. After finishing his military service, Gili went on to build two enterprise software companies that were acquired by EMC and IBM.
In 2009, Gili decided to apply his operational experience to venture investing and he joined Sequoia Capital where he led the firm’s cybersecurity, internet, mobile and technology companies investing in Israel. After nearly nine years as a General Partner at Sequoia, Gili left to build his own fund, Cyberstarts.
Under Gili’s leadership, Cyberstarts has raised more than $720 million across 5 funds and made 28 investments to date with a combined company valuation of $55 billion. Notable investments include Wiz, Island, Fireblocks, Cyera, and Transmit Security, and notable exits include Noname, Axis, Bionic, Dazz, and Avalor. A dedicated advisor, Gili currently sits on 10 company Boards.
Gili is based in Mikhmoret, Israel. In addition to his passion for cybersecurity, Gili is an avid sports enthusiast and is a minority owner in Hapoel Tel Aviv, his favorite basketball team.
