Spring Ventures

Wellborn Ventures was a Tel Aviv-based Israeli venture capital firm founded in 2014 by Aviv Refuah and Tzvika Sobel that focused on seed and early-stage Israeli startups across information technology, software, big data, digital media, cybersecurity, clean technology, mobile and wireless applications. The firm operated as a sub-organization within Spring Ventures, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange-listed internet holding group led by Aviv Refuah that also owns Journey Ventures, a multi-stage travel-tech specialist; in November 2017 Spring Ventures formalized its support by acquiring a 19% stake in Wellborn Ventures for $2.1 million. Typical check sizes were $1M to $5M, with a coaching-and-strategic-support approach designed to convert visionary founder ideas into mature global brands, generally as a co-investor. The portfolio of disclosed investments includes Vi in digital health, Bugatone in audio tech, SecuredTouch in mobile gesture-based authentication, acquired for $11.53M, Apester in interactive content, its latest exit in January 2022, CiValue, Shopic in retail tech, Upsolver, SQL data pipelines for cloud data lakes acquired for $42.5M, Nano Dimension in 3D additive manufacturing for electronics, public at one point at a $1.6B valuation, and vBrand. Overall, Wellborn Ventures' portfolio produced one IPO and five acquisitions. The fund formally ceased operations on February 7, 2022, with new investing activity rolling into parent Spring Ventures going forward. During its active years, Wellborn Ventures backed seed and early-stage Israeli founders across IT, cybersecurity, digital media and cleantech, pairing capital with coaching and strategic support to help them build global brands.