Michael Broukhim launches Deep33 Ventures, a $150M deep tech fund targeting the US-Israel corridor

You have news for us.

I mean, you guys always dress to impress and I didn't want to let you down. So,

thank you. Uh, you raised some money. How much did you raise?

Uh, we've got a $150 million fund. Uh, we've closed.

There we go.

$150 million fund. Um, what what what what uh subm markets are you most interested in? What strategy? What stages? How are you thinking about focusing your investing work over the fund life cycle?

Yeah, so we are a deep tech fund uh focused on the USIsrael corridor.

So we'll be investing across uh US and Israel.

And so you know what's what's unique especially about the the kind of the Israel ecosystem focus is there isn't a a deep tech fund let's say in the mold of let's uh you know an Eclipse, a DCVC, a Lux Capital. Sure.

Uh focus on that ecosystem. And we just think there's enormous opportunities. Uh

uh what are the what what are the great uh uh recruiting hubs for entrepreneurs in defense in Israel? We've heard about Talpo and a few other groups. Where are you finding talent? Uh are they uh you know ex uh founders themselves, repeat founders? Where are you sourcing deals from? Uh so interestingly actually the for the former commander of Talpot is actually one of my partners in the fund. No way.

For those of you who uh aren't familiar with Talpote, you know, there's there's a lot of different elite units in in in the IDF, but Telpot is the unit of the physicists. Um there's a bet the IDF made to to really train physicists uh

uh and and combine that with the defense industry. Um so we do we we work closely with uh with you know the the different uh groups. Another my partners is from 8200 uh which many of you might be familiar with is kind of the cyber unit within the IDF. Yeah.

Uh we have uh tentacles into into those alumni groups and networks. Uh as well as a lot of the institutions of higher learning. So Whitesman Institute, Technon, etc.

Sure.

Um you know we're we're kind of uh I'm actually the the only non-Israeli on the team of five partners. Yeah.

Uh, so we're we're deep in that ecosystem.

Five partners. That's cool. Out out the gates. It's sort of the the the counterposition pretty squarely against a solo

solo GP. Yeah. There were a lot of people that were doing that. Yeah. How' you how'd you all meet and what was the what was the concept between the maybe larger partnership at this phase? I don't know.

Yeah. So, so we have a what we call an expert first model. uh the you know my main my main code GP uh is Leo Proour who uh has been a venture capitalist for 15 years um decided to start a new platform because of the opportunities uh we thought were emanating specifically in deep tech and out of the Israel ecosystem but to do deep tech right uh you actually have to have uh you know significant capabilities to go deep on the technical side um to have people who are you know domain experts and so three of our other partners are actually domain experts in the categories that we're most bullish on. Uh one being quantum computing, the second being AI infrastructure, a third being uh energy, and then we also have a venture partner and adviser in the robotic side.

How are you thinking about uh point solutions versus defense platform companies? Uh, are you looking for a multi-product uh, defense firm that can build sensor towers and drones and submarines or do you want to invest in uh, a bunch of different teams that are doing small uh, small like smaller product bets, see what works and then maybe scale out of that like what's the current uh, meta on the ground in Israel?

Yes. So interestingly although you know defense is an important part of the ecosystem and shoots off a lot of the innovation that we are investing into we don't think of ourselves as a defense fund in in fact we're not um focused on kind of kinetic battlefield uh companies although

a byproduct of the types of companies and technologies that we are investing in uh oftent times do have uh defense ramifications and capabilities on the battlefield. Um we we just think that the commercial opportunities of those technologies when they extend beyond defense uh kind of specific companies are are much bigger. They can have much bigger outcomes.

Um so there's a lot of dual use in the in the types of things that we're looking at. And you know what we're looking for is just you know in insanely capable founding teams

uh really groundbreaking kind of technology and IP and enormous end markets. And you know when when you look at the kind of the confluence of things of that that Israel has uh in terms of the defense industry the institutions of higher learning the concentration of uh elite scientists uh RF industry silicon industry optics industry etc. There's really you know the only other geography in the world that has that sort of concentration of those types of mixes of assets is really California and you see what California produces. Um so we think Israel is kind of this looming deep tech giant. uh in a lot of ways the ecosystem there uh in deep tech is kind of where cyber security was uh maybe a decade ago in Israel and now it's this powerhouse that's producing these you know just insane outcomes uh we think of the next decade the the deep tech outcomes from Israel are going to be right up there

where did the name come from

oh yeah

uh so I think deep speaks for itself you know one we go deep and we're focused on deep tech uh and 33 is actually uh it has a mystical connotation uh in Judaism it's the it's the day of Logba Omar which is a Jewish holiday uh where the the kind of the depth of the the hidden secrets of the universe were were revealed for the first time and you know that's what we really think our founders are doing our founders are companies and kind of the mission of the firm is to go uh into the tech technological and scientific frontiers uh and we think of that as a way of of revealing hidden truths uh that the type of work that that that these companies are doing what we're trying to build uh is really uh frontier tech and and new innovation that uh you know moves moves the world forward and moves our understanding of the world forward.

That's cool. Uh last question for me. Uh energy, do you put that in the deep tech realm? Are there particular areas within energy that you're interested in? Solar, nuclear, wind, anything.

Yeah, it's a great question. Absolutely. Um we actually have uh two energy companies already uh under under our belt. Um we you know in in particular kind of our thesis on energy um is uh is where the point of production and the point of consumption are brought together.

Sure. Um so uh where can you create unique types of uh energy outputs uh uh on location on site um you know so for for for instance if uh you know one company we haven't announced is is is able to produce uh carbon fuels carbon based fuels uh out of a laboratory um and uh you know so and and there's a scaleup model around that that we think is extremely compelling uh you know the the name of the for a lot of uh you know US security interests, Israel security interests and the shared interest between the two of them is this kind of supply chain resilience. I think we saw the president speaking at Davos and and even you know describing maybe you know the kind of the the counter swing of globalization is here and that means people having these uh these uh capabilities on site being less uh relying on any specific partner uh and trade for their national security. And so that that ability to to bring things on site becomes incredibly important.

It's amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come chat with us. Congratulations.

Next time you join, you can join from uh Tel Aviv. I'm assuming you're are you calling in from LA right now?

I'm actually calling in from New York. Uh here uh it's Deep 33. Uh you know, we're across LA, Tel Aviv, and New York. So the team all came together

uh you know, announced the fund and and do some uh critical work together. So

amazing. Amazing. Well, I'm sure you'll be back soon. Yeah. Congrats talking fun together.

Goodbye.

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Up next, we have Aaron Katz. He's the co-founder and CEO of ClickHouse. He'll be joining in just a minute. Uh, in the meantime, let's head over to the timeline. Elon Musk has confirmed that he's unhappy with the Twitter algorithm. Data Hazard said the Twitter algo has gone to hell. I want to again see obscure technical posts from outside my follows, not this cornucopia of low IQ rage slop. That's an interesting coinage. Uh Elon chimed in and said, "I agree. Sigh." So that's the thing. Anytime that there's a bad day on the timeline, bad week on the timeline, I feel like they're pretty aggressive about just mixing it up. I don't know. You might not like the new thing, but it's going to be different. You're going to be seeing some do and stuff. And there's been some fantastic uh deep