Protego

Co-Founder and Managing Partner Lital Leshem and Co-Founder and General Partner Lee Moser share investment decision authority. Leshem is a former IDF Major (Res.) in military intelligence who co-founded Carbyne, sold for $625 million in 2025. Moser previously served as Chief of Staff to Ambassador Michael Oren, helped expand BlackRock's presence in Israel, and concurrently runs AnD Ventures. The team is reinforced by CTO Brig. General (Res.) Dr. Ziv Avtalion, who oversees technological due diligence.

Protego sources through a network maintained by active military reservists and senior defense officials embedded in the firm. Its general partners and advisors operate across Israel, the United States, and allied nations, accessing companies that have undergone live-field validation. The firm describes this as privileged access to defense priorities, with an information pipeline that refreshes through ongoing operational service and advisory relationships with entities such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Protego makes direct investments in early-growth defense technology companies. The firm presents as a single-fund vehicle without disclosed fund-of-fund activity or SPV structures, deploying its $150M targeted vehicle into operating companies across its designated sub-sectors.

The firm states it invests in early-growth-stage companies. While it does not publish strict check-size brackets, the portfolio confirms positions in companies such as XTEND and Prisma Photonics at stages where commercial contracts and battlefield validation are already present.

Protego does not publish a formal exclusion list. However, its stated mandate — sensors, AI/ML, drones, UAVs, and cyber-adjacent defense — signals non-participation in consumer, enterprise SaaS, fintech, or life sciences. Its advisory board and team expertise are entirely military, intelligence, and defense-policy oriented.

Co-Founder and General Partner Lee Moser simultaneously serves as Managing Partner of AnD Ventures, an early-stage technology fund. Protego's financial advisor Mandy Rotner also serves as CFO at AnD Ventures. While the funds maintain separate brand identities, the personnel overlap suggests shared back-office functions and potential cross-referencing of defense-adjacent deal flow between the two vehicles.

The firm does not publicly detail a co-investment program. Its network description — including advisors such as Oaktree co-founder Stephen Kaplan and former SoftBank executive Gary Ginsberg — implies capacity for syndicated rounds, but no publicly disclosed co-investment vehicle or track record exists.