UpWest
550 California Ave Suite 1, Palo Alto, California, 94306, United States
Overview
UpWest is a Silicon Valley-based seed fund investing in Israel’s most promising entrepreneurs. UpWest is focused on a hands-on approach to supercharge the growth of its startups, providing the essential ingredients for success: seed funding, proximity and access to markets and capital, and a supportive community of talented peers. For more information, visit upwest.vc.
- Total investments
- 36
- Lead investments
- 3
- Investments · 12mo
- 3
- Active investors
- 8
Sector focus
- Finance
- Financial Services
- Venture Capital
Investment portfolio
- Elio
Participated · Series A · Jul 2026
Elio develops sensors that prioritize AI-driven capture rather than human-visible imagery, using dynamic optical layers of micromirrors and on-optics computation so AI can decide what to capture in real time. Its approach treats sensing like software: modules can gain new capabilities after shipping as AI learns to correct and interpret the optics' behavior. The company describes applications across microscopy, semiconductor inspection, robotics and defense, including label-free live-cell observation, seeing through stacked chip layers to find buried defects, multi-sensing robotic modules, and long-range detection of small fast-moving threats. Elio is led by founder and CEO Nadav Grossinger and CTO Nitay Romano, who previously co-built Pebbles Interfaces (acquired by Meta) and led the physical-sensing stack for Meta’s AR/VR headsets. The firm emphasizes its core technology’s basis in diffractive optics and prior commercial and research experience of its leadership. Elio is headquartered in San Mateo, California.
- RAVEN.IO
Participated · Seed · Mar 2026
Raven.io provides runtime protection for applications, delivering CVE-less behavioral protection without instrumentation or performance impact. Its platform is deployed in production with 11 enterprise customers across insurance and financial services. The company was founded by Guy Franco, Roi Abitboul, and Omer Yair and is based in Palo Alto. Raven.io has registered its technology in three U.S. patents. Following the recent financing, the company plans to accelerate product development, expand U.S. go-to-market efforts, and grow its engineering and research teams.
- Darwin
Participated · Series A · Oct 2025
Darwin AI builds software that lets public-sector agencies adopt artificial intelligence safely and in compliance with regulations. Its flagship product, Darwin Govern, offers centralized guardrails for policy enforcement, records management, data governance, and overall AI oversight. On top of that foundation, its LaunchPad platform enables agencies to create and manage agentic workflows for functions such as HR, procurement, and permitting. Across its customer base, the company has found that more than 60 % of AI usage occurs through unsupervised “shadow AI,” a gap it helps close by delivering visibility and control. Darwin has been recognized in the Center for Public Sector AI’s inaugural AI 50 Awards, underscoring its leadership in responsible, scalable AI infrastructure. The new capital brings total Series A financing to $15 million, supporting accelerated product development, expanded deployment support, and growth of policy, training, and implementation teams as demand rises among agencies in Texas, Ohio, California, Illinois, and Washington.
- Deeto
Participated · Series A · Jul 2025
Deeto is an AI-native platform that continuously collects, organizes, and surfaces real customer stories and insights to build trust and accelerate buyer decisions. The product automatically matches customer-proof content to buyer personas and embeds that intelligence across CRMs, websites, and sales enablement tools. Deeto emphasizes minimal lift from Sales, Marketing, or Customer Success while delivering personalized customer voice at scale. The company counts customers such as Atlassian, Dropbox, Klaviyo, Bloomreach, and 6Sense. Deeto is headquartered in New York City and is led by Co-Founder and CEO Eran Baron. Financially, the company has raised $17 million to date, including the newly announced Series A.
- TrialKit
Led · Seed · Apr 2025
TrialKit provides an AI-native legal discovery platform designed to help defense attorneys manage large volumes of digital evidence. Its features include automated organization and categorization that ingests and labels unstructured discovery and AI-powered search that converts and translates videos, PDFs, audio and other files into searchable text. The platform also offers entity extraction and cross-reference mapping to identify people, locations, and times across thousands of files, plus facial recognition for video review. An Interactive Workstation integrates tools for note-taking, fact mapping, and witness preparation so attorneys can analyze discovery and get case-ready in one secure workspace. TrialKit is used by more than 20 criminal defense firms and in public criminal defense cases across the U.S. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts; it is led by CEO Ariel Deshe.