RDC

CEO Yaniv Shnieder leads RDC’s day-to-day operations and investment activity, with oversight from Elron Ventures chairperson Lisya Bahar Manoah and the Arieli Group, which controls Elron Ventures. The firm also draws on venture partners like Kobi Katz and senior advisors such as Yishay Perry, who co-leads the CyberFuture initiative.

A distinguishing feature is RDC’s exclusive right to form companies around intellectual property developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Israel’s largest defense contractor. This creates an internal pipeline of defense and deep-tech innovations not broadly shopped to other venture firms, supplemented by the CyberFuture CISO network for cybersecurity sourcing.

RDC is an asset manager operating as the investment arm of Elron Ventures, which itself is controlled by the Arieli Group. It functions as a venture capital firm, not a family office, with a strategy spanning early-stage company creation and growth equity, though it maintains the structural oddity of an exclusive IP pipeline from a defense conglomerate.

RDC makes direct venture and growth-stage investments and also runs CyberFuture, a micro-fund that pools capital from a global alliance of CISOs to back cybersecurity startups. The firm has not publicly disclosed whether it invests as a limited partner in external funds; its known activity centers on direct and co-investment structures.

RDC has not published a negative list, but its portfolio and stated focus — cybersecurity, defense tech, deep tech, SaaS, AI, and medical devices — suggest it stays away from consumer internet, traditional retail, and non-tech heavy industry.

Elron Ventures holds 50.1% of RDC and is itself controlled by the Arieli Group. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems owns the remaining 49.9% and provides the exclusive IP pipeline that RDC commercializes. Lisya Bahar Manoah chairs both Elron Ventures and RDC, embedding Arieli’s control across the structure.

Yes. RDC’s controlling shareholder, Elron Ventures, is linked to the SZMC-Arieli Healthcare Innovation Hub, a philanthropic initiative focused on healthcare innovation. The hub operates separately from the for-profit venture activities.