Yoav Leitersdorf

Yoav Leitersdorf, Managing Partner at YL Ventures, has been a successful tech entrepreneur and investor for over 25 years. He founded YL Ventures in 2007 to help brilliant seed-stage Israeli entrepreneurs transform their ideas into game-changing companies. Today, YL Ventures is fully focused on seeding cybersecurity startups. Under his leadership, YL Ventures has raised over $800M across four funds and expanded into a growing multidisciplinary team of experts supporting the most promising startups at every milestone with tailored value-add initiatives. He has also overseen the firm’s network grow into a vast arsenal of thousands of chief information security officers and cybersecurity experts keen to advance startup development from the earliest stages. YL Ventures was ranked 8th out of over 250 venture capital firms in PitchBook’s prestigious 2022 Global Manager Performance Score League Tables, and was the only cybersecurity-focused VC to secure a top 10 spot on the list. Yoav works from YL Ventures' headquarters in Silicon Valley to promote Israeli cybersecurity innovation and broaden its scope and impact across the global market. Over the past decade, YL Ventures has developed a track record of successful, high-profile portfolio company acquisitions by major corporations that include Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, CA (now Broadcom) and Proofpoint. Yoav regularly speaks and features in interviews about the state of the cybersecurity industry and writes articles for major tech publications, including TechCrunch, VentureBeat, CSO Online, Forbes, Business Insider and Vox. Prior to YL Ventures, Yoav founded, grew and sold three tech startups, worked at a leading U.S. venture capital firm, studied at IMD, and earned an MBA with honors from Columbia University.