At 33, married with two children and living in Herzliya, she now runs Third Point Ventures’ investment activity in Israel. But her path started in Safed, where she grew up as the seventh generation in the city, one of six children, with a Border Police officer father and a Tipat Halav nurse mother. She says the home was small but warm, and that it gave her confidence that “we can do everything.” She was a studious, ambitious child, identified as gifted, attended summer enrichment programs at Tel Hai College and the Technion, and began waiting tables at 14.
She was accepted to Unit 8200 after refusing to give up on the commute to Tel Aviv, waking at 5 a.m. and riding buses for six hours. She served about three years as a desk officer, produced English-language intelligence, and won an outstanding commander’s award. She wanted a military career, until a commander told her, “I’d be happier if you invited me to the launch of your startup.”
After her discharge, she learned about the Defense Ministry’s procurement mission in New York while working at the restaurant Bat Ya’ar. She pushed to enter the selection process, was told she was too young, and treated that as encouragement. At 20, she became the youngest buyer in the delegation, responsible for sourcing systems requested by the Air Force and the Armament Corps, and closing deals worth millions of dollars. Two years later she returned to Israel after her father died of cancer, moved back in with her mother, began a software engineering degree, and worked as a software engineer at Rafael. She also helped found the 8200 Young Forum, which grew to about 4,500 members in a year.
In 2017, after two years at Rafael and while in her fourth year of studies, she joined CloudShare, later moving to Pitango after a year and a half. She says she originally planned to stay two years, did not know much about venture capital, and instead remained more than four years and built Pitango First, a seed-investment track, while joining the boards of about 10 portfolio companies, including Finout, Frontegg and Komodor. Daniel Shenar connected her with Dan Loeb, founder and CEO of Third Point, and after meetings in New York she joined despite becoming pregnant. In 2022, while seven months pregnant, she became head of Third Point Ventures’ investment activity in Israel, and the firm launched its local operation when her son Omer was five weeks old.
Third Point Ventures manages about $1 billion across two funds, while Third Point itself manages about $25 billion. Since she took the job, she has led investments in Grip Security, Zenity, Unframe and Pi Security. She says she has never been bothered by working mostly with men, and that her therapy is baking, especially challah and Moroccan fish.
