Protego Ventures closes debut $125 million fund for Israeli defense tech
Defense and venture capital used to rarely overlap, but that’s no longer the case. Defense tech VC dealmaking set a record in Q1 2026, and new VC firms have emerged around the world to invest solely in defense startups. One of these is two-year-old Protego Ventures, which presents itself as the first and largest dedicated defense tech VC in Israel.
- ▪Defense and venture capital used to rarely overlap, but that’s no longer the case.
- ▪Defense tech VC dealmaking set a record in Q1 2026, and new VC firms have emerged around the world to invest solely in defense startups.
- ▪One of these is two-year-old Protego Ventures, which presents itself as the first and largest dedicated defense tech VC in Israel.
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| Original publisher | TechCrunch |
| Canonical URL | https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/29/protego-ventures-closes-debut-125-million-fund-for-israeli-defense-tech/ |
| Publication time | Tue, 29 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-29T10:05:11.011Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-29T10:05:11.011Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
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| Cluster | vgS9PrJcvFCw · 1 stories |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Defense and venture capital used to rarely overlap, but that’s no longer the case. Defense tech VC dealmaking set a record in Q1 2026, and new VC firms have emerged around the world to invest solely in defense startups. One of these is two-year-old Protego Ventures, which presents itself as the first and largest dedicated defense tech VC in Israel. Led notably by two women, Lital Leshem and Lee Moser, it has just completed the final close of its debut fund with $125 million in capital commitments, TechCrunch learned exclusively. This fund size is enabling Protego to invest between $5 million and $50 million per company, with a focus on startups “addressing the critical defense and security needs of Israel and the global community,” according to its website.
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