Ofir SouthUp Ventures

The Investment Committee is chaired by Dr. Amiram (Ami) Appelbaum, the former Chief Scientist and Chairman of the Israel Innovation Authority. Managing Partner Itai Horstock, who previously founded Sherpa Group and worked as an M&A attorney at Shearman & Sterling in New York, leads execution from the GP side. Founding Partner Gil Shvartzman, CEO of the SouthUp incubator, and Partners Rafi Nevo and Amichai Steimberg round out the committee alongside operating executives from the region's industrial base.

Ofir SouthUp Ventures sits atop the SouthUp incubator, which has graduated 60 startups since 2017 and maintains an active pipeline of 27 portfolio companies. Deal flow funnels through the incubator's two physical campuses in Sha'ar HaNegev and Kibbutz Nir Am, collaborations with Sapir College, and a government mandate that channels Israel Innovation Authority-backed startups into the program. The fund also allocates up to 15% of capital to exceptional startups outside the Western Negev.

It operates as a private equity vehicle structured as a regional impact fund, not a family office. The GP was established by the SouthUp technology incubator and raises discretionary LP capital alongside the concessional grant layer provided by the Israel Innovation Authority. The firm pursues market-rate returns, but its mandate is geographically constrained to the Western Negev.

The firm makes direct equity investments in startups, primarily at pre-seed, seed, and Series A stages. There is no public evidence of fund-of-funds commitments or LP positions in external GPs. The Israel Innovation Authority's grants flow to the portfolio companies themselves, not to the fund.

Ofir Libstein served as head of the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council and was the primary political force behind bringing technology entrepreneurship to the Western Negev. He was killed on October 7 while defending Kibbutz Kfar Aza. The fund is named for him and was designed to execute his vision: transform the Gaza envelope into a tech employment hub that delivers both economic resilience and returns.

The fund itself is not a philanthropic vehicle — it is structured to generate private market returns. However, its economic development mandate blurs the line: portfolio companies must operate in or relocate to the Western Negev, and the incubator receives state grants explicitly designated for regional revitalization. A separate nonprofit entity, the Association for the Development of Technological Entrepreneurship in the Negev Gate, runs the incubator's public-interest activities.

The fund has not publicly disclosed a formal co-investment program for outside GPs. Its capital structure integrates Israel Innovation Authority grants at the company level, which would likely complicate side-by-side direct co-investments. The firm's own materials emphasize the incubator's internal network and its circle of regional industrial partners as co-investment conduits.