A tough year in the market, but 2022 was also a year of growth for Hetz
There is no question that 2022 was a challenging year in the market. There has been lots of talk about how founders and investors are feeling the repercussions, but the downturn has reverberated across the entire tech ecosystem, including vendors, consultants, and others who work with tech teams.
That said, we'd like to close out this year acknowledging and celebrating the growth our team has accomplished, despite an intense year.
Q1 of 2022 kicked off with the announcement of our $123M Hetz Fund III, as well as the Hetz Ventures Opportunity Fund. Soon after, we celebrated the first exit from our portfolio (Fund I) - Granulate was acquired by Intel for a reported $650M, returning most of our first fund. Soon after, Seekret was acquired by Datadog, and Market Beyond was acquired by Bright Data, totaling the first three exists in Hetz history, all from Fund I.
Later in the year, a few other milestones occurred for Hetz. We launched our new brand, reflecting the Hetz DNA in a more polished (and accurate!) light.
In Q4, we welcomed Anat Eitan, our new CFO & Partner. Anat served as CFO at Tytocare, which developed a device for patients to perform guided medical exams remotely, alongside a healthcare provider. Previously, Anat led as CFO at Waze for 4.5 years, from Round A to the company's acquisition by Google.
Expanding our efforts around value creation for both our portfolio and our executive advisors, we launched officially the Hetz Executive Network, a selection of more than 200 industry experts hand-picked to help early-stage companies from Seed to Series A in deliberate and structured way. This year alone, we facilitated 250 introductions and key connections between founders and corporate tech leaders. Building this network since the beginning has been a core part of Hetz' playbook and under the leadership of Moran Gelbart, Head of Business Development, we will continue to sharpen it in 2023.
Along with much of the world, we stepped back into events, making our mark at/around several major industry conferences and gatherings, including RSA, AWS re:Invent, SaaStr, Mind the Tech NY, ICON, and DevOps Days. We hope to see you at a Hetz event in the new year.
This was also the year of the Hetz Drone Challenge! In case you missed it, watch our portfolio founders compete in a friendly tournament of teamwork, flying (and occasionally crashing) a DJI drone in a Hetz office drone race course.
Finally, we are very pleased to share several of the ways our team has worked to give back to our communities over the last year. Through Yala Impact, we launched a campaign of giving, contributing to several causes near and dear to our network. We also joined ClearGiving, a non profit that donates directly to families in need by offering tech companies the opportunity to donate on behalf of their employees each month. We also had some fun - and impact - turning the VC World Cup Bracket Challenge into an opportunity for the winner to choose an Israeli charity of choice. Big thanks to our partner in the effort, ADvantage VC, and our winner - Nofar Schnider at StageOne Ventures. As well, we were happy to sponsor the first Women-in-Tech Mentorship Mixer, a networking event aimed to boost careers and professional opportunities.
What's next? There's a lot more planned in 2023. We'll see you there!
