Israeli Tech Sector Thrives Amidst Conflict, Flint Capital Stays Bullish‌ ‌

From left, Flint Capital General Partners Dmitry Smirnov, Sergey Gribov and Andrew Gershfeld. COURTESY FLINT CAPITAL

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Since the October 7 Hamas attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza, some experts have been predicting doom-and-gloom for Israel’s flourishing tech sector.

Sergey Gribov, a general partner of US-based early-stage venture capital fund Flint Capital, says those predictions might have been premature. Out of nearly 70 companies in Flint’s investment portfolio, 40 are Israeli.

“There were maybe a couple US VCs who had questions, but most of us remained very, very positive towards Israel,” Gribov says.

“But obviously, it has not exactly been business as usual. We have been trying to do whatever we can to help, from collecting donations for the army … to helping our Israeli portfolio companies,” he adds.

Gribov explains that many of Flint’s portfolio companies in Israel were left short-staffed due to reserve duty obligations.

“For example, the CEO and founder of one of our companies was on reserve duty for three or four months. He would do reserve duty for 12 hours, and for the next 12 hours he would basically run the company instead of sleeping.”

Gribov, an Israeli citizen living in Boston since 1997, is well-versed in the local tech developments. “I’m in Israel every couple of months,” he notes.

“I moved to Israel in 1990 from the Soviet Union. I went to university in Israel, did army service, and then started working at Compugen shortly after it was founded,” recalls Gribov.

“What happened was that the company needed to open a US office. The founders already had families, but I didn’t. So I was willing to go.”