Team8 Raises $365 Million to Back AI-Native Companies as Enterprise Security Concerns Mount

Team8 Raises $365 Million to Back the Next Generation of AI-Native Enterprise Companies

With Nearly $2 Billion in Total Assets Under Management, the New Capital Fuels Team8's Focus on Secure, Trusted and Accelerated AI Adoption for Enterprises NEW YORK, August 11, 2026 (Newswire.com) - Team8, the global venture fund, today announced $365 million in new capital - $265 million for Team8 Capital's third fund and more than $100 million for follow-on investments in its highest-conviction portfolio companies. Fund three will back Seed and Series A founders building AI-native companies across cybersecurity, software infrastructure, fintech and digital health. The close brings Team8's total assets under management to nearly $2 billion across eight funds since 2014. Led by Managing Partners Sarit Firon and Liran Grinberg, alongside Partners Ori Barzilay and Hadar Siterman Norris, Team8's newest fund recorded its first exit before reaching its final close, following Palo Alto Networks' reported acquisition of Koi Security in February. The fund closes at a time when AI is moving faster than enterprises can safely absorb. Successive releases from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are reshaping the technology landscape at unprecedented speed, forcing organizations to rethink products, workflows, software infrastructure, and risk models almost overnight. As companies race to deploy AI agents, many are doing so before governance, visibility, and security controls have fully caught up. That gap is already showing up inside the world's largest companies. A survey of 111 security leaders at Team8's latest CISO Village Summit found that 97% of organizations have already begun adopting AI agents and 80% are already running them in production, while confidence in their ability to secure AI averaged just 2.32 out of 5. For CIOs, CISOs, and enterprise technology leaders, agentic AI has quickly become one of the most urgent new operational and security challenges facing the enterprise. "AI is fundamentally rewriting the economics of company building. Developing breakthrough technology has never been easier building a company that endures has never been harder," said Sarit Firon, Managing Partner at Team8. "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. That's exactly where we believe the next generation of category-defining, AI-native companies will be built, and it's exactly where our enterprise Village communities and our go-to-market, recruiting and AI teams give founders an edge nobody else can offer." Against this backdrop, Team8 will deploy the new fund behind founders building AI-native infrastructure and cybersecurity companies. The firm will focus on foundational technologies it believes enterprises will increasingly rely on as AI reshapes the technology landscape, including AI infrastructure, orchestration, identity, data and security. Portfolio companies will also have access to Team8's company-building platform, including enterprise connections, market validation and support across company formation, go-to-market and growth. "Our new fund investors aren't just backing a track record, they're backing Team8's ability to spot the enterprise problems that matter years before everyone else, and to turn that insight into companies that define entire categories," said Liran Grinberg, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Team8. "We built this firm on the belief that broad and deep context, not capital, is the scarcest resource at the earliest stage of a company's life. As AI accelerates change and creates real uncertainty across every enterprise, we're more convinced than ever that the biggest opportunities sit in the software infrastructure and cybersecurity layers that let enterprises adopt this technology with confidence and we couldn't be more excited to back the next generation of AI-native founders building exactly that." About Team8 Team8 is a global venture fund that invests in early-stage companies as well as partners with founders to build new companies from scratch, with the conviction that capital is not the most valuable early-stage resource - context is. Team8 partners with leading entrepreneurs to identify significant market opportunities, develop insight-driven ideas, and build category-defining companies in cybersecurity, enterprise and AI infrastructure, fintech and digital health. Team8 supports entrepreneurs across the entire journey, from early strategy and validation through research, go-to-market, marketing, talent acquisition and HR, with a team of more than 90 in-house company builders and a Village of hundreds of enterprise executives from Fortune 500 and global companies. Team8 manages nearly $2 billion in assets across eight funds and is backed by leading financial and strategic investors.

Israeli venture firm Team8 raises $365m. to invest in AI-native start-ups

Israeli venture firm Team8 has raised $365 million in new capital to invest in the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) companies. The new capital includes $265m. for Team8 Capital's third fund and over $100m earmarked for follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies. The fund is led by managing partners Sarit Firon and Liran Grinberg, alongside partners Ori Barzilay and Hadar Siterman. It will focus primarily on Seed and Series A companies developing AI-native technologies across cybersecurity, software infrastructure, fintech, and digital health. The latest fundraising brings Team8's total assets under management to nearly $2b. across eight funds launched since the firm was founded in 2014. Team8 targets AI-native companies as enterprise adoption accelerates The fund has already recorded an exit before reaching its final close. In February, Palo Alto Networks reported an agreement to acquire Israeli cybersecurity start-up Koi Security in a deal valued at approximately $400m. Team8 said the new fund comes at a critical moment for enterprises, as the rapid development of generative and agentic AI is forcing companies to rethink their products, workflows, infrastructure, and security models. The latest fundraising comes as Israeli cybersecurity and defense-tech companies continue to attract significant interest from global investors and strategic buyers, particularly in areas where the rapid adoption of AI is creating new security vulnerabilities and infrastructure requirements. Companies are increasingly deploying AI agents capable of carrying out tasks autonomously, but many organizations are doing that before they have established adequate visibility, governance, or security controls. AI agents create new security challenges for companies According to a survey presented at Team8's latest CISO Village Summit, 97% of the 111 security leaders surveyed said their organizations had already begun adopting AI agents, and 80% were already running them in production. In parallel, respondents rated their confidence in their ability to secure AI at just 2.32 out of five. "Agentic AI has become one of the most urgent operational and security challenges facing enterprises," the firm said. For chief information security officers (CISOs), chief information officers (CIOs), and others, the rapid emergence of agentic AI is creating a new category of operational and security risks. "AI is fundamentally rewriting the economics of company building," Firon said. "Developing breakthrough technology has never been easier; building a company that endures has never been harder." Firon said Team8 believes that as AI capabilities evolve "at a pace none of us have seen before," the strongest companies will not necessarily be those with the most advanced underlying models, but those aimed at solving fundamental enterprise problems that remain relevant as the technology changes. "That's exactly where we believe the next generation of category-defining, AI-native companies will be built, and it's exactly where our enterprise Village communities and our go-to-market, recruiting, and AI teams give founders an edge nobody else can offer," she added. New fund focuses on AI infrastructure and cybersecurity The firm plans to invest its new capital in what it views as foundational layers of the AI ecosystem, particularly AI infrastructure, orchestration, identity, data, and cybersecurity. Grinberg said portfolio companies will also have access to its broader company-building platform, including connections to major enterprises, market validation, and assistance with company formation, recruiting, go-to-market strategy, and growth. "We built this firm on the belief that broad and deep context, not capital, is the scarcest resource at the earliest stage of a company's life," he said. "As AI accelerates change and creates real uncertainty across every enterprise, we're more convinced than ever that the biggest opportunities sit in the infrastructure and cybersecurity layers that let enterprises adopt this technology with confidence, and we couldn't be more excited to back the next generation of AI-native founders building exactly that." Founded in 2014, Team8 operates as both an early-stage investment firm and a company builder. Its focus spans cybersecurity, enterprise, and AI infrastructure, along with fintech and digital health. The firm has more than 90 employees involved in building companies, and it maintains a network of hundreds of enterprise executives from Fortune 500 and other global companies.