RAD Data Communications

RAD Data Communications

Founded in Tel Aviv in 1981 by brothers Yehuda and Zohar Zisapel, RAD Data Communications was the original company within the RAD Group—a decentralized cluster of autonomous networking and telecom equipment firms that came to define a generation of Israeli technology entrepreneurship. The group structure allowed each entity to remain agile while sharing the Zisapel family's patient capital. RAD Data Communications itself stayed private and profitable, designing Ethernet access, IoT edge, and critical infrastructure networking equipment for service providers in over 150 countries. RAD's investment posture crosses multiple asset classes. Its core operating business manufactures multiservice edge equipment for carrier Ethernet, industrial IoT, and TDM migration—supplying customers including Vorboss UK. Alongside the operating company, the family office has assembled a direct real estate portfolio spanning commercial properties in Tel Aviv's Ramat Hahayal tech corridor (Or and Ziv Towers, Beit Immanuel, 27 Habarzel Street), office space in Jerusalem's Har Hotzvim district, and a New Jersey commercial portfolio in the United States. Infrastructure equity appears through a stake in the Israel Broadband Company, and the family's venture activity flows through the broader RAD Group network and related entities like RAD BioMed, co-founded by Nava Zisapel. The Zisapel family's professional footprint extends well beyond a single generation. Yehuda Zisapel chaired the Israel Association of Electronics and Software Industries; his son Roy Zisapel serves as CEO of Radware, a publicly traded cybersecurity firm. Zohar Zisapel's son Michael sits on the board and holds succession interests, while Zohar's life partner Heli Bennun chairs Radcom. The family also owns meaningful non-industrial assets, including a 1734 Guarneri del Gesù violin and a Rodin copy installed in the RAD headquarters lobby. In May 2024, RAD received two Pipeline Innovation Awards, signaling continued investment in product development inside the operating business. RAD Data Communications is distinguished by its hybrid structure: a revenue-generating industrial operating company that also functions as the anchor for a multi-generational family office. Unlike pure investment offices, RAD's balance sheet is continuously replenished by its own manufacturing sales, giving it a cost of capital and a time horizon disconnected from institutional LP dynamics. The family's philanthropic vehicle—the Sara and Moshe Zisapel Nanoelectronics Center at the Technion—reinforces the link between the operating business, the family's legacy, and Israel's technical talent pipeline, creating an architecture where investment, operations, and human capital development are run as a single system.