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Former NBA player Omri Casspi has raised $60 million for his latest venture fund, Swish Ventures, which will invest in early-stage cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence startups. The fund plans to back 10 companies, investing $5 million to $7 million per deal.
Swish Ventures is Casspi's second fund following the launch of the $50 million Sheva Capital in 2022. “I will be fully committed to growing our company, but we will not be raising another fund under Sheva's leadership,” Casspi told TechCrunch, explaining his role in overseeing the two funds.
Several founders supported by Sheva are now investors in Swish Ventures, including EON founder Ophir Ehrlich, Upwind founder Amiram Shachar, and PointFive co-founders Gal Ben-David and Alon Arvatz. They join other institutional investors; Sequoia Capital is the fund's lead investor.
Casspi said Swish Ventures will follow a similar philosophy to Sheva, focusing on seed investments “in new startups led by experienced entrepreneurs” who have the potential to build market-defining companies. However, Swish Ventures is narrowing its focus to cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence – a departure from Sheva's broader remit, which includes fintech and web3 as well as cybersecurity startups.
The move reflects growing investor interest in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, particularly in Israel and the United States, where Caspi has concentrated its investments.
Israel is particularly known for its prowess in cybersecurity—according to statistics, the industry attracted more than half of the venture capital raised by Israeli startups in the first six months of 2024. National Center for Entrepreneurship. Casspi invested his own money Wizalthough Yian is a portfolio company of Sheva.
Casspi, the first Israeli to play in the NBA and a former captain of the Israeli national basketball team, is just one of several athletes now becoming venture capitalists. Just last week, Giannis Antetokounmpo Become the latest sports figure Enter the world of venture capital. Serena Williams especially Kevin Durant runs Serena Ventures There is 35V, Stephen Curry Owned by Penny Jar Capital, owned by Andre Iguodala Mosaic General Partnership.
Casspi claims his firm has about $125 million in assets under management. Other startups in Sheva's portfolio include Upwind, which is valued at about $900 million, and PointFive, whose founders previously raised $36 million by selling a company to Rapid7.
Swish has also added Dana Alexandrovich as an operating partner. Prior to his current role, Alexander served as Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft Israel since 2021, leading sales operations in the Middle East and Africa.
