The Ledger
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Raanan: I never discuss gross margins with early-stage startups
“How much I discuss, how often I discuss gross margins with our, with my early stage companies? Never.”
Gili Raanan: Over-Capitalizing Founders Is Not a Risk for VCs
“I'm not in a business of babysitting founders. And for me, this is like babysitting the founder. If we trust them to build, in my case, an important cybersecurity company that's critical to all the major banks in the US, and you put in their hands the safety o…”
Raanan targets founders who overcame severe childhood hardships like divorce and isolation
“So I'm looking for the individual who, whose parents went through ugly divorces. I'm looking for the individual who lived in a closet for a while. I'm looking for the individual who was a socially isolated child. I'm looking for people who went through real di…”
Gili Raanan: Being first to market in cybersecurity is not an advantage
“I think that cyber security is, is a market where being first to market is not necessarily an advantage. Sometimes it's better to be number two, number three to market. And come in with more knowledge, more context, and simply, you know, deliver a better produ…”
Raanan: Cyberstarts interviews founders about childhood background rather than product or market
“When I started CiderStarts in 2018, I decided that I would not even ask them about market or technology or product, you know, so I meet with a team, a new team, which I don't know, and we spend an hour, you know, speaking about their childhood and their mother…”
Gili Raanan: 2021-level valuations have returned to private markets
“20, 20, 21 is back for the past four or five weeks. We are definitely in in at least in private markets when we are in a new Bull run, you know, valuations are high, skyrocketing.”
Raanan: Cyberstarts missed seeing only one or two Israeli cyber seed rounds in eight years
“Maybe once or twice over the past eight years, but there are deals that I'm telling myself, okay, I should have done it.”
Raanan: I regret selling every single secondary share in Wiz early
“Look, it's not a secret that, you know, we at Cyberstarts we have sold secondary shares at companies like Weez early on. By the way, I regret, I sold every single share at Weez. I regret it because, you know, if I sold it right now, I would make I would, Show …”
Raanan: Cyberstarts created a recurring employee liquidity fund to retain talent
“At CyberStats, we created a vehicle we call it employee liquidity fund, which is focused not just on a, not on one-off type of secondary deals, but creating a program, a recurring program with a portfolio company where we provide liquidity to their employees e…”
Raanan: Average Cyberstarts portfolio company spends $100M on engineering
“That's the average for a cyber starts company. Hundred million dollars in the next three years on engineering.”
Raanan: Early-Stage Startups Should Front-Load Three Years of Customer Objections
“You take all the hypothetical objections you might face as a company in the next three or four years and bring it to present.”
Gili Raanan: Enterprise software seeds require at least $5M to $6M
“Enterprise software companies, cyber security included. I found out that you need at least five or six million dollars just to get Team, product built, and a small go to market team to win few deals. That's what it typically take to build an enterprise softwar…”
Raanan: High startup valuations are necessary to protect founders from extreme dilution
“Our companies need to raise a lot of money. It means that valuations should be high because no founder would like to get 50% dilution just to get the cash they need.”
Gili Raanan raised Cyberstarts' seed fund in 90 seconds via WhatsApp
“The last seed fund, you know, I think it took me like 90 seconds to raise the fund, you know, nine WhatsApp messages and it was done.”
Cyberstarts has participated in every Series A and B for its portfolio
“So far we invested in all series A and series BFR companies.”
Gili Raanan: Let venture partners focus on strengths, not fixing weaknesses
“My view on that is that I would let each team member play on the relative strengths. And would not require them to focus on improving their weaknesses, but actually play more, more often and stronger on the relative advantages. Cause on the weaknesses at the b…”
Gili Raanan: Enterprise browser startup Island is valued at $5 billion
“You know, it's a five billion dollar company today in valuation, selling, growing, growing very, very fast in a market that it actually, they define the market.”
Cyberstarts executed multi-million dollar secondary program for Cyera employees
“We've done our first type of secondary program with Sierra, where I think that we are buying probably not mentioned the exact number, but it's a many, many millions of dollars of few hundred employees of Sierra.”
Gili Raanan: Cyberstarts is weak at idea generation and market theses
“What we are not doing well. Coming up with ideas. Running thesis on markets.”
Cyberstarts operates $60M seed funds without doing seed follow-ons
“Our seed funds are sixty million dollars in size and we write first and last check. To new teams. No follow-on investments out of the seed funds.”
Cyberstarts portfolio companies are raising over $1.5B in coming weeks
“Our own portfolio at CyberStarts, our companies are in the process of raising probably more than one and a half billions dollars in, in, in the next few weeks.”
Cyberstarts operates without physical offices, holding pitch meetings in Raanan's backyard container
“That's one of the reasons cyber starts. We don't have offices. And I take meetings in my backyard, which is conveniently located. 15 minutes ride from Tel Aviv in a suburb.”
Gili Raanan: Cyberstarts struggles with co-founder matchmaking
“We are not good at matchmaking between founders.”
Raanan: 11 of 17 Cyberstarts Sunrise graduates reached unicorn status or exit
“If you look at the current Cyberstarts portfolio, we are at you know, overall, I believe at 21 companies. Four are still running Sunrise, so who knows, but out of the 17 who went through Sunrise and raised Series A, seven are unicorns one is a decacorn, and th…”
Gili Raanan: Cyberstarts uses uniform seed terms and avoids squeezing founders
“Most of our deals at the seed stage look the same. We don't try to twist their arm and get one or two points more just to For the sake of making a little bit more.”
Gili Raanan: Cyberstarts sold No Name Security to Akamai for ~$500M
“Eventually we sold the business to Akamai for half a billion dollars or so”