Olivent Venture Capital

US capital for Israeli founders. Seed & pre-seed in AI infrastructure, defense & cybersecurity. Daily founder stories + investing explained. MP: @adam_yohanan

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

Up to 95% of a quantum computer could go to one job. Google just cut that job's errors about 40x on its Willow chip (Science, Oct 15). Google's own goal: quantum-safe encryption by 2029. Switch now, or is 2029 still early? #QuantumComputing

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

Microsoft walked away from the UK's biggest planned AI supercomputer. The local grid can't power it until the 2030s, and about 73 GW of data center demand is waiting in line. Who wins the AI race: the company with the most chips, or the one that can plug them in? #AI

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

"Up to $35M" isn't the same as $35M. Here's what an earnout is, with a simple example, and what to read before you celebrate an exit.

Would you take less cash today for a bigger maybe later?

#VentureCapital #Startups

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

The Pentagon wants to drop the mother of all bombs on Iran. The target that matters, Pickaxe Mountain, sits 80 to 100 meters under granite. America's deepest bunker buster reaches about 60. Strike or deal? #DefenseTech #Iran

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

A SAFE with a cap and a discount doesn't give you both. It converts at whichever price is lower. Round well above the cap? The cap wins. Round below it? Only the discount protects you. Lower cap or bigger discount, which would you pick? #AngelInvesting

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

Tesla's new Roadster: Performance at $50K to reserve, Thrust at $250K, and the Rocket, invite only, no price.

The Rocket sets the scale so the other two look reasonable. That's anchoring.

What's the Rocket in your business?

Voiceover and lip-sync made with AI.

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

Own 10% of a startup worth $5M. It raises $4M at $16M pre-money. You now own 8%, and that 8% is worth $1.6M.

That's dilution. Smaller slice, bigger pie. Just count the option pool and the SAFEs too.

How much would you give up for the right partner?

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

1999: two childhood friends in Israel build a digital vault for the passwords that open everything. Then the dot com crash, and a deal that fell apart on 9/11. 2025: Palo Alto Networks agrees to pay about $25B for CyberArk. Would you have kept going after 2001?

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

The cap table often tells you more than the pitch deck. Dead equity, founders under half after seed, SAFEs nobody modeled.

What's the strangest thing you've found on one? #VentureCapital #AngelInvesting

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

Same $2M check, same $10M valuation. Post-money: you own 20%. Pre-money: about 16.7%. One word changes what you own. Have you had pre vs post change your math?

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

Six people. One year after their seed round, Rocket Software bought their company.

Geniez AI went deep on the mainframe, the least glamorous corner of tech. Second exit for the founders.

What boring industry do you know better than almost anyone?

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

In 1996, four young Israelis built ICQ. Less than two years later, AOL agreed to pay up to $407M for it. The lesson: solve one small, daily problem so well that users bring users. If you had 18 months, what problem would you build for?

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

Leave at month 11, get zero. Leave at month 18, keep 18,000. That's the vesting cliff. Would you back founders who are fully vested on day one? #VentureCapital #Startups

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

Nvidia once had about 30 days of cash. Jensen asked Sega for $5M and warned them they'd probably lose it. Sega said yes.

Would you have written that check? #VentureCapital #Nvidia

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

3 years ago Decart didn't exist. Now Amazon is reportedly in talks to buy it for ~$7B.

The demo got the attention. The infrastructure got the price tag.

Would you sell at year three, or keep building?

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

Two startups both claim $10M ARR. Only one of them means it.

ARR vs run rate in 85 seconds, and the one question that sorts them.

What's the biggest gap you've seen between a deck number and the real one?

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

Experts said fixing Hormuz would take years. It took seven months.

A 1981 pipeline, ship-to-ship transfers and U.S. Navy escorts got Gulf oil back to pre-war levels.

Who in your market is building a way around you?

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

Who can invest in a startup before it goes public? In the US it comes down to one label: accredited investor.

Should knowledge count as much as money? The SEC just asked.

#AngelInvesting #VentureCapital

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

Shlomo Kramer co-founded Check Point, then Imperva. In 2015 he started a third company, Cato Networks. This July it passed $415M in annual recurring revenue, up 42% a year. If you'd already built two winners, would you start a third? #VentureCapital

[Olivent Venture Capital @OliventVC]

When you invest this early, who are you really betting on? The founders. What we check: their story, their fit, and the deal between them. One red flag: no founder vesting. What's the first thing you look for in a founder? #VentureCapital #AngelInvesting