The Pre-Seed Report Everyone’s Talking About
With over 6,000 downloads and reviews, our 2024 State of Israeli Pre-Seed Report has officially gone viral. Built from data contributed by 40 of the most active pre-seed VCs and 50+ angel investors, including insights from nearly 1,100 teams we engaged with at Fusion over the past year.
Key insights include:
Average post-money cap: $6.45M | Median: $6M.
Typical round size: $825K–$1.5M.
50%+ of VCs now invest via post-money SAFE exclusively.
Rounds include more VCs writing smaller checks and fewer angels making larger bets.
66%+ of investors require founders to be full-time before funding.
12–18 months is now the average time between pre-seed and seed.
AI funding is focused on vertical applications.
Haven’t read it yet? Download the full report.
Curious for more? Watch Amit Shechter, Fusion’s Associate, break it down on TV.
You can also check out our Full press coverage.
Want to contribute to the next edition? Reach out to amit@fusion-vc.comor simply leave your details here if you are a VC investor or Angel investor.
Batch #15: Our portfolio teams hits the US
After over a month of hands-on bootcamp in Tel Aviv, Batch #15 is officially on the road; kicking off our US investor tour with events in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palo Alto, and New York with the latest 7 early stage startups we invested in.
As a reminder, during the Israeli leg of the program, founders tackled some of the most critical challenges for early-stage startups: → Sales strategies and GTM planning → Landing your first 10 customers → Applying The Mom Test to validate real needs → Effective storytelling that converts → Building healthy co-founder dynamics → Hiring your first team members → Laying the groundwork for scalable systems
Along the way, we ran two of our most impactful workshops:
Sales Office Hours: Seven of our alumni founders - each with multi-million dollar ARR - worked one-on-one with the new cohort. Together, they fine-tuned cold outreach, rewrote blurbs, optimized demo calls, and built clear ICP pipelines from scratch.
Investor Simulation Workshop: Ten top-tier investors, angels, and serial founders joined us for a 3-hour session, giving real-time feedback on investor pitches, fundraising strategies, and the big questions keeping founders up at night.
Only halfway through the program, and more than half the teams have already raised additional capital of a few millions dollars - and it’s just the start.
Building something we should know about? Apply now for batch #16 or you can always reach out to our team at amit@fusion-vc.com. There’s no need for official introductions!
Portfolio Momentum: 3 Startups Crossed $1M in ARR, Fourth Got $1.5M BIRD Grant
Samplead - redefines outbound sales, offering a smarter way to find and build relationships with your ICP, led by Dor, Gadi, and Yotam. Grew ARR from $1M to $1.5M in just one quarter. How? By drinking their own champagne, leveraging their outbound platform, and tapping into powerful referral loops.
Newlight - transforms conventional diesel engines into hybrid hydrogen-diesel ones, reducing fuel consumption by up to 30%, led by Haran and Evyatar. Awarded a $1.5M grant through the prestigious BIRD Energy program to accelerate hybrid diesel-hydrogen tech for cleaner global shipping.
Coddy - transforming code learning into a daily hobby, led by Nethanel, Barak, and Kevin. From $100K ARR and no external funding to $1M ARR and $950K raised - all in under a year. They almost shut down, but didn’t. We were proud to be their first believers.
The Real Cereal Company - The cereals you know and love crafted with healthy ingredients, led by Daniel and Tom. Scaled from 30 to 1,200+ stores in the US in under 12 months. Their zero-sugar, organic cereal is now stocked nationwide - and their distribution map tells the story.
Fusion Events & Community Highlights
March was packed with high-energy events where we had the pleasure of hosting Israel’s top early-stage founders, investors, and tech leaders. From panels to workshops, the conversations were real - and the momentum is only growing.
Women in Tech: Leadership, Funding & Founding - With 250+ women founders, executives, and investors joined our third annual event for a powerful summit on women’s leadership in tech and entrepreneurship. Highlights included a keynote by Prof. Karnit Flug and panels featuring top VCsfrom Accel, Grove, and Entrée, as well as Fusion’s founders Karny Ilan from Feminai and Or Mookmal from GiftVerese. Read Our Full Event Summary.
Finding the Next Unicorn: Top VCs from Grove, TLV, Glilot, and 5Eyes shared how they evaluate teams, trends they're tracking, and what true founder-market fit looks like in 2025. What’s our main takeaway? VCs want to back holistic teams with real founder-market fit - and they’re bullish on vertical AI. Read Our Full Event Summary.
From Pitch to Funding 2025: What startup funding will look like in the year ahead? Leading voices from Stardom, Savyon, Precede, and top angels, sharing what makes a startup truly fundable in 2025. Fireside Chat with Liad Agmon (Insight Partners), offering an inside look at global investment trends. Read Our Full Event Summary.
CTO & Tech Leaders Community Event: hosting 150+ early-stage CTOs, R&D leaders, and builders who joined us to tackle real-world implementation of AI and deep tech in production environments. We discussed the “Build vs. Buy” approach and dive into LLM performance, frameworks for integrating LLMs into production, common pitfalls in deployment, and more. Special thanks to Profisea and Battery Ventures. Read Our Full Event Summary
