Protego Ventures Closes $125M Debut Fund for Israeli Defense Tech

TL;DR

Protego Ventures, the Herzliya-based venture firm co-founded by Lital Leshem and Lee Moser, has closed its debut fund at $125 million, built from a $70 million initial close plus a $55 million top-up, against an original $150 million target. The fund backs early-growth defense and security startups whose technology has already been proven in the field, with checks ranging from $5 million to $50 million across sensors, AI/ML, and autonomous systems including drones and UAVs. It matters because Protego is, by its own account, the only Israeli defense-tech VC led entirely by women, and because its portfolio already includes XTEND, which went public on the NYSE in September 2026 at roughly a $1.5 billion valuation, giving the firm an early, real exit to point to before it has even finished deploying Fund I.

Key Takeaways

This is a growth-stage defense fund dressed in seed-fund clothing. A $125 million debut sounds like a typical first-time-fund story, but the check size ($5M-$50M) and the stated mandate, companies that have already begun selling and whose tech has been proven in battlefield or operational environments, put Protego closer to a Series B/C growth investor than a pre-seed shop. That's a deliberate bet that the highest-signal, lowest-risk entry point into Israeli defense tech right now is post-traction, not pre-product.

The fund fell short of its own target, and that's not necessarily a red flag. Protego set out to raise $150 million and closed at $125 million. In a normal software cycle that would read as a soft market signal. In defense tech post-October 7, with LP interest in the category arguably at an all-time high, a below-target close more likely reflects a deliberate decision to hold the line on fund size and discipline rather than stretch the timeline chasing the last $25 million.

One disclosed LP, Ares Management, tells you who's actually underwriting this thesis. Ares committing a reported $30 million is notable: this is a global alternative asset manager with a credit and secondaries-heavy book putting real capital behind a two-year-old, women-led defense VC. That's a strong institutional-validation signal for a sector that used to be the province of a handful of specialist funds and corporate strategics.

The founders' backgrounds are the actual product here. Lital Leshem spent 11 years in IDF intelligence and co-founded Carbyne (sold to Axon for $625 million in late 2025); Lee Moser built her track record deploying hundreds of millions at AnD Ventures and previously helped expand BlackRock's presence in Israel. In a sector where deal access depends on military and government relationships as much as financial modeling, that combination of operator credibility and fund-management experience is the moat, not the AUM.

Fund Overview

Fund Name: Protego Ventures Fund I
Fund Size: $125 million (final close; $70M initial close plus $55M additional, against an original $150M target)
Stage: Early-growth, post-traction (revenue-generating, field-proven technology)
Check Size: $5 million-$50 million
Geography: Israel, with cross-border ties into the US and allied defense markets
Focus: Defense and security technology, sensors, AI/ML, autonomous systems (drones/UAVs), navigation in GPS-denied environments, critical-infrastructure sensing, and cyber
Key LPs: Ares Management (publicly reported $30 million commitment); the firm has also indicated Israeli institutional investors and a large US commitment are lined up for a planned Fund II rather than Fund I

Why This Fund Matters

Israeli defense tech has gone from a niche, corporate-strategic-dominated corner of the ecosystem to one of the hottest theses in global venture in the space of about two years. October 7, 2023 and the war that followed didn't just create urgency around new capability, it created a generation of founders and operators who left elite IDF units with both the technical chops and the customer relationships to build companies fast. Protego's founding story, formed explicitly out of the conviction that new technologies would need to strengthen Israel's defense posture, is emblematic of that shift, but so is its timing: the firm is closing a debut institutional fund right as its first bet, XTEND, has already gone public.

What's structurally interesting is where Protego sits in the stack. Most of the Israeli defense capital that gets headlines is either early-stage (seed funds betting on IDF-alumni founders pre-product) or late-stage growth and PE (the Ares Managements and sovereign funds writing $100M+ checks into companies like XTEND once they're de-risked). Protego's $5M-$50M check size and "already selling, already proven in the field" mandate slots directly into the gap between those two: it's underwriting the transition from military pilot program to scaled commercial and government contract, arguably the highest-conversion, lowest-technology-risk stage in defense venture, and one that's historically been underserved by dedicated capital.

The Ares Management commitment is worth dwelling on. Ares is not a typical VC LP, it's a $450B+ global alternative asset manager built on credit, real assets, and secondaries. A commitment from a firm like that into a sub-$150M debut vehicle signals that large allocators see Israeli defense tech as an institutional-grade thematic bet now, not a speculative sector play reserved for specialist or government-adjacent capital. That's the kind of validation that tends to pull in more traditional LPs for a Fund II, which Protego is already planning to launch in Q1 2027 with a broader scope explicitly including early-growth US defense-tech companies.

The XTEND outcome deserves a caveat as much as a celebration. A $1.5 billion NYSE listing for a portfolio company before your debut fund has finished deploying is an extraordinary mark, but it's one data point, and defense-tech valuations, like every other AI-adjacent category in 2026, are running hot. The real test of Protego's thesis will be whether ASIO, Prisma Photonics, and Rilian, its less-publicized bets, can generate similar outcomes without the tailwind of a single marquee IPO propping up the fund's overall multiple.

The Team

Lital Leshem is Co-Founder and Managing Partner. She served 11 years in the IDF's Southern Command as a Major (Res.) in intelligence and security operations, was called to reserve duty on October 7, 2023, and co-founded Carbyne, the emergency communications technology company sold to Axon for $625 million in November 2025. She subsequently became a Partner at Frontier Resource Group focused on defense, aviation, and cybersecurity investments, and is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and founding member of the UAE-Israel Business Council.

Lee Moser is Co-Founder and General Partner. She is separately the Managing Partner of AnD Ventures, where she has raised and deployed hundreds of millions of dollars across multiple funds, and previously served as the youngest-ever Chief of Staff to Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren in Washington, DC, and played a role in expanding BlackRock's presence in Israel. She holds a Bachelor's from Tel Aviv University and an MBA from Kellogg.

The broader team includes Brig. Gen. (Res.) Dr. Ziv Avtalion as CTO, who previously led the IDF's Digital Transformation Directorate; Maj. Gen. (Res.) Tal Kelman as Head of Strategy and Defense, a former F-35I pilot and IDF Strategic Planning and Cooperation Directorate leader; Yoel Mazur as CFO; Ben Moore, a former Meta partnerships manager, as Head of Partnerships and Value Creation; and Nir Gilbert, a former JAL Ventures principal, as Principal Investor. The firm's advisory board includes Steven Price (CEO of 25madison and former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense), Gary Ginsberg (former SoftBank and News Corp executive), and Michael Oren, the former Israeli Ambassador to the United States.

Early Portfolio

XTEND, a maker of human-guided autonomous robotic and drone systems, is Protego's marquee outcome to date, having gone public on the NYSE under ticker XTND in September 2026 at a reported valuation of roughly $1.5 billion after previously raising a $70 million Series B. ASIO builds situational-awareness and navigation systems for GPS-denied and contested environments and has a stated partnership with Anduril. Prisma Photonics develops fiber-optic sensing technology for critical-infrastructure monitoring. Rilian builds AI systems for cyber task execution.

What This Means for Founders

If you're an Israeli or allied-market defense-tech founder who has already landed a pilot or early revenue with a military, government, or prime contractor, and you need growth capital rather than seed capital, Protego is now a well-capitalized, credibly-connected option that wasn't fully institutionalized until this close. The firm's value-add is less about product feedback and more about opening doors, its GPs and advisory board collectively span IDF intelligence, strategic planning, the Israeli ambassador's office, and Meta's government relations function, which is a rare combination for founders trying to navigate export controls, allied-government procurement, and dual-use classification questions simultaneously.

It's a worse fit for pre-revenue or purely R&D-stage defense founders; the fund's own language, "already begun selling," "proven in battlefield or operational environments", signals they're not the first institutional check for a company still in a defense-innovation-unit pilot with no signed contract. Those founders should look further down the stage curve toward seed-focused defense and dual-use specialists, and circle back to Protego, or its planned Fund II, once they have commercial or government traction to show.

Fund Momentum Take

We like this fund more for its positioning than its size. $125 million is a modest number by 2026 defense-tech standards, but the stage focus, growth capital for field-proven, revenue-generating defense startups, is exactly where Israeli defense venture has been underserved relative to both the seed stage (crowded with IDF-alumni pre-seed funds) and the late growth/PE stage (dominated by generalist mega-funds and strategics chasing the next XTEND). Protego is threading a needle that plays directly to its founders' operator and LP-relationship strengths rather than trying to out-write larger, better-capitalized competitors.

The risk we'd flag to LPs considering Fund II: XTEND's IPO is doing a lot of work for the firm's early credibility, and defense-tech public and private valuations in 2026 are stretched across the board, not just for Protego's portfolio. A debut fund's real quality shows up in years three through five, when the marks have to hold up without a single outsized mark carrying the average. We'd also watch whether the "growth capital for proven defense tech" niche gets crowded fast, this is exactly the kind of differentiated, capital-efficient thesis that attracts fast-follow competition once it's proven out publicly, as it just was.

Our bet: Protego's team composition, defense operators plus a genuine fund manager in Moser, plus explicit institutional validation from Ares, gives it a real shot at becoming the category-defining growth-stage vehicle for Israeli defense tech, provided the Fund II raise in Q1 2027 doesn't get ahead of the firm's actual deployment discipline.

Frequently Asked Questions

How big is Protego Ventures' debut fund?
Protego closed Fund I at $125 million, combining a $70 million initial close with a $55 million additional close, short of its original $150 million target.

What stage and check size does Protego invest at?
The firm writes $5 million to $50 million checks into early-growth defense and security companies that already have revenue and field-proven technology, rather than pre-product or pre-revenue startups.

Who are Protego Ventures' general partners?
Lital Leshem (Co-Founder and Managing Partner, previously co-founder of Carbyne) and Lee Moser (Co-Founder and General Partner, also Managing Partner of AnD Ventures) lead the firm.

What has Protego Ventures invested in?
Its disclosed portfolio includes XTEND (autonomous drone systems, now NYSE-listed as XTND), ASIO (contested-environment navigation, partnered with Anduril), Prisma Photonics (fiber-optic infrastructure sensing), and Rilian (AI for cyber task execution).

Who are Protego's limited partners?
Ares Management is the only LP publicly disclosed so far, reportedly committing $30 million; the firm has said additional Israeli institutional and US LP commitments are being lined up for a planned Fund II rather than Fund I.

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