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What Investors REALLY Want to See From Founders
This Week in IsraelTech - Pitch Deck Secrets They Won’t Tell You ft. Nina Raab from LionRun Consulting
Pitch Deck Secrets They Won’t Tell You ft. Nina Raab from LionRun Consulting
We had an incredible conversation with Nina Raab of LionRun Consulting about the REAL secrets of startup fundraising!
Nina’s story?
She made Aliyah 1.5 years ago and built a 10-person consultancy from Tel Aviv to NYC.
Now she helps startups from their seed round to Series B raise serious cash - and 40% of her clients are Israeli. 🇮🇱
What blew us away:
- Most founders waste time pitching to the wrong VCs
- You need 3 different deck versions (not just one!)
- VC analysts - not partners - often decide your fate
- Israel's meritocracy beats Silicon Valley's credential obsession
- She was originally going to co-found IsraelTech with Yoel!
Nina’s 3-phase process covers strategy, storytelling, and investor meetings. Plus, she partners with boutique VCs as their value creation arm.
Her biggest warning? Don’t take money too early. You’ll regret it later.
And her best insight: In Israel, no one cares where you went to school. Just bring value.
Shorts of the Week
Not another job board. Not another networking event. ft. Abbey Onn of Nevo Network
Can a legacy be built forward? ft Chemi Peres of Pitango
Why has Israeli tech actually thrived while other sectors struggle? ft. Gilad Alper
This Week in Israeli Tech News
Prompt Security Acquired by SentinelOne for $250M
Two Israeli cybersecurity startups, one blockbuster exit. In just two years, Prompt is being acquired by fellow Israeli giant SentinelOne to secure the GenAI frontier.
Tavily Raises $25M to Power Real-Time Web for AI Agents
Tavily is building core infrastructure that lets AI agents access real-time data across the web and enterprise systems - a critical layer for Israeli AI innovation.QuamCore Raises $26M to Build Million-Qubit Quantum Computer
From deep-tech labs in Israel to the global quantum race, QuamCore is developing a system with 1 million qubits in a single cryostat - a 100x leap over today’s leaders.Capitolis Raises $56M from World’s Largest Banks
Capitolis is quietly becoming the Israeli backbone of global financial infrastructure, helping 100+ top banks free up locked capital.Vendict Raises $10M to Fix GRC With Adaptive AI
Vendict is giving compliance teams AI-native tools to cut manual grunt work, boost efficiency, and eliminate hallucinated outputs – all with full traceability.
Culture Corner
Pnina Pinhasi, the first and only female to serve as a combat soldier in the IDF’s Elite Naval Unit, Shayetet 13, died at the age of 97 last month. Born in January 1928 in Poland, her early life was marked by persecution and hardship. Her family fled to France, but as restrictions on Jews tightened during WW2, she and her siblings were hidden in a tuberculosis sanatorium, and they returned home after the war, only to find out their mother had been murdered by the Nazis. At 17, she joined a group of French Jewish youth planning to immigrate to Israel on the Haganah, an illegal immigrant ship. After she arrived in Haifa, she was detained in Atlit and settled in Kibbutz Sdot Yam. In 1947, she joined the Palyam, the naval branch of the Palmach, completing courses in sailing and medical training. A year later, she was invited by Yosale Dror, founder of Mossad’s covert diving unit, to join its ranks to disrupt Arab arms activities. Pnina accepted, and she made history as the first and only female officer in the unit.
She was trained in sabotage, intelligence, navigation, close-quarters combat, and extensive swimming and diving. As a result, she often outperformed her male counterparts. While in the diving unit, Pnina met her husband, Reuven, and after the 1948 War of Independence, she left the unit and they settled at Moshav Michmoret. Her story remained largely unknown until recently. Pnina and Reuven raised a family of four children, 10 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren, many of whom followed in their footsteps by serving in the Israeli Navy. One son became a second generation Shayetet 13 combatant, and two of her grandchildren (one in active duty and the other in reserves) are third generation soldiers in the unit.
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