Hetz Ventures has successfully closed its **$140 million fourth fund**, achieving this milestone during a period of wartime and global economic uncertainty. With Fund IV, the firm now manages nearly **$500 million in total assets**, just eight years after its inception. Hetz Ventures specializes as an early-stage investor in **cybersecurity, data, and AI infrastructure**, focusing on foundational technologies rather than consumer applications or late-stage growth.

**Notable exits** from Hetz-backed companies have generated over **$1 billion in value**, including acquisitions like Granulate by Intel in 2022, Silk Security by Armis in 2024, and Prompt Security by SentinelOne in 2025.

Beyond exits, Hetz highlights ongoing momentum in its active portfolio, with recent financing rounds for companies such as Majestic Labs and BlinkOps. This underscores the firm's strategy of **identifying founders early** and supporting them through multiple growth stages.

Judah Taub, Managing Partner at Hetz Ventures, commented: "Despite one of the most difficult years in Israel’s recent history, innovation here hasn’t paused for a moment but even accelerated. There has never been a more ambitious generation of Israeli entrepreneurs who are thinking bigger. Combined with the technological disruption we’re seeing across cybersecurity, data, and infrastructure, we believe this cohort will produce some of the most important companies of the next decade. Fund IV is not just a vote of confidence in Hetz, but in the Israeli ecosystem at large."

<iframe src="https://cdn5-fstl-tf.anyclip.com/_SXi5ZIBk1bovDFZYkUe/1730433849825_480x270_video.mp4?wid=0016M00002WyNiBQAV_M8255" title="Intel closes Israel's Granulate after its $650M purchase - and whose value just topped $4 BILLION?" allowfullscreen></iframe>

**Related articles:**
- [AI in 2026: Abundance is cheap. Trust is not.](https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/r1gsiu0mbg)
- [The new logic behind today’s oversized Israeli Seed rounds](https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rw8zoawan)
- [If we don’t build a data brand in Israel, we’ll miss the AI revolution](https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skgpvciall)

The fund comes as the firm marks $1 billion in portfolio exit value and nearly $500 million under management.

Hetz Ventures Raises $140M to Fuel Israeli Cyber and AI Startups Amid Global Uncertainty

Why do some entrepreneurs drive economic growth while others do not? This piece discusses **new research** that studies entrepreneurs using a comprehensive dataset from Denmark. We examine who becomes an entrepreneur, along with their hiring and business decisions, and find that a distinct minority are **"transformative."** These individuals, who generate disproportionate productivity gains, tend to have **high IQ scores**, be **well-educated**, and hire **technical (R&D) workers**. The data support the idea of productivity growth being driven by the **symbiotic relationship** between transformative entrepreneurs and R&D workers. For policymakers, the lesson is that when an economy has more R&D workers and transformative entrepreneurs, they sustain higher long-run productivity growth.

## Facts on Entrepreneurs

Our work develops new facts using comprehensive data on individuals and firms from Denmark Statistics. For instance, individuals' IQ test scores come from a military test that is generally taken in very early adulthood. We combine this measure with details of entrepreneurs' education and parental backgrounds and firm performance to connect individuals' backgrounds with their firms.

We identify entrepreneurs as individuals who register as primary founders of firms with at least one employee. Among this group, we distinguish **transformative entrepreneurs**, those who hire at least one R&D worker, from **non-transformative entrepreneurs**, who do not employ technical personnel. This classification captures innovation intent rather than performance outcomes. R&D workers are defined as individuals employed in occupations with high patenting intensity, reflecting their direct involvement in innovation-related activities.

The data reveal striking patterns. The first chart shows how the shares of entrepreneurs and R&D workers vary across IQ deciles. The pattern is reversed across the two groups: individuals with higher IQs are more likely to be R&D workers, but less likely to be entrepreneurs.

![Bar chart tracking the share of IQ deciles in percentage (vertical axis) against IQ deciles from 1-10 (horizontal axis) of R&D workers (blue bars) and entrepreneurs (gray bars); individuals with higher IQs are more likely to be R&D workers, but less likely to be entrepreneurs.](https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/LSE_2025_enterpreneurship_pearce_ch1.png)

Source: Denmark Statistics.
Notes: The chart shows the share of all individuals in each IQ decile that are entrepreneurs (gray bars) and R&D workers (blue bars). Definitions available in text and in Akcigit-Alp-Pearce-Prato (2025).

The pattern flips for transformative entrepreneurs, as shown in the next chart: individuals with higher IQs are more likely to be transformative entrepreneurs. These patterns remain when controlling for parental background, education, and age.

![Bar chart tracking the share of IQ deciles in percentage (vertical axis) against IQ deciles from 1-10 (horizontal axis) of non-transformative entrepreneurs (gray bars) and transformative entrepreneurs (red bars); individuals with higher IQs are more likely to be transformative entrepreneurs.](https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/LSE_2026_entrepreneurship_pearce_ch2.png)

Source: Denmark Statistics.
Notes: The chart shows the share of all individuals in each IQ decile that are classified as non-transformative entrepreneurs (gray bars) and transformative entrepreneurs (red bars). Definitions available in text and in Akcigit-Alp-Pearce-Prato (2025).

Educational attainment shows similar patterns as IQ: college graduates are less likely to become entrepreneurs overall but are much more likely to found transformative firms once they do. The strongest predictor of entrepreneurship is having a parent who is an entrepreneur. Education is central for transformative entrepreneurship and R&D workers, and is a key building block for an innovative ecosystem.

## The Firms of Entrepreneurs

Tracking firm employment over the first decade after a firm is founded reveals substantial performance differences between entrepreneur types. Transformative entrepreneurs start firms that employ approximately **twice as many workers** as those founded by non-transformative entrepreneurs and maintain significantly higher annual employment growth rates (16 percent versus 8 percent). This can be seen in the next chart.

![Line chart tracking the level of normalized employment (vertical axis) for firms from 1 to 10 years old (horizontal axis) of non-transformative (gray dashed) and transformative (red) entrepreneurs; transformative entrepreneurs start firms that employ approximately twice as many workers as those founded by non-transformative entrepreneurs and maintain significantly higher annual growth rates.](https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/LSE_2025_enterpreneurship_pearce_ch3.png)

Source: Denmark Statistics.
Note: Average employment by firm age and entrepreneur type, normalized to one at age zero.

Revenue trajectories mirror employment patterns. Transformative firms reach **seven times their initial revenue** by year ten, while non-transformative firms plateau at 2.5 times initial levels. Exit rates differ modestly between firm types: in their first year, 16 percent of non-transformative firms exit, compared to 12 percent of transformative firms, though both rates converge to around 8–9 percent by year eight.

Industry sorting by IQ also exhibits intuitive patterns. Low-IQ entrepreneurs concentrate in traditional sectors like trade/transport and construction/agriculture, while high-IQ entrepreneurs dominate knowledge-intensive industries, with the knowledge/communication sector representing 50 percent of entrepreneurial activity in the top IQ deciles.

## The Macroeconomics of Entrepreneurship

We develop a quantitative model to study the macroeconomic effects of entrepreneurship on innovation and economic growth, incorporating individual differences in ability, family income, and entrepreneurial exposure. In the model, individuals choose between production work and R&D careers initially, then decide later in life whether to become an entrepreneur, consistent with the age profile in the data. In line with the data, educational attainment, necessary for a technical career path, is determined by both ability and family resources. The model replicates key empirical patterns: negative selection into general entrepreneurship with respect to ability, positive selection into transformative entrepreneurship and R&D work with respect to ability, and the observed correlation between firm performance and entrepreneur type.

The model captures the **symbiotic relationship** between transformative entrepreneurs and R&D workers by linking individual career choices to firm-level innovation decisions. This microeconomic foundation enables us to trace how barriers and choices at the individual level aggregate to economy-wide productivity effects through both supply-side constraints (shaped by the availability of R&D workers) and demand-side limitations (determined by the pool of transformative entrepreneurs hiring technical talent). This framework is necessary to develop a full range of realistic responses to policies and changes in the institutional environment.

We use the model to study the effects of various constraints and policies. Eliminating financial constraints in education access, for example, increases R&D workers' share of the workforce by **15 percent** and boosts transformative entrepreneurs' share by **7 percent**, with both effects concentrated among high-ability individuals from low-income families. In addition, the pace of economic growth increases by **11 percent**.

Supply-side changes alone generate only 60 percent of the total growth effect, with the remaining 40 percent stemming from increased demand for R&D workers by additional transformative entrepreneurs. This illustrates the symbiotic relationship between these entrepreneurs and R&D workers.

Policy-wise, subsidies to technical education outperform R&D and startup subsidies, generating around **four times as much initial return** at low budgets by unlocking access to innovative careers for talented individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. These simulations suggest that it is sensible to mix the different subsidies to jointly stimulate the supply and demand sides of the innovation pipeline.

This piece explores the macroeconomics of entrepreneurship using rich microdata. The evidence illustrates that differences between entrepreneur types are stark, and this has substantial implications for aggregate innovation and growth.

The symbiotic relationship between transformative entrepreneurs and technical workers means that policies affecting one group also influence the other. Education subsidies prove most effective because they simultaneously increase both the supply of R&D talent and demand for R&D talent from the pool of innovation-focused entrepreneurs. Policies that develop ecosystems of talent foster connections between the builders of companies and the builders of ideas. This lesson applies broadly to innovation ecosystems: a thriving economy emerges from many interconnected elements working together.

A look at the characteristics of transformative entrepreneurs who generate disproportionate productivity gains.

The Secret to Economic Growth: How Transformative Entrepreneurs with High IQs and R&D Workers Drive Productivity

**Local startups and young businesses, get ready to pitch your way to success!** The Salina Area Chamber of Commerce has officially opened applications for the **5th Annual Charlie Walker Pitch Challenge**, set to take place on **Wednesday, April 1st, 2026, at Kansas State University-Salina**. This exciting event offers entrepreneurs a chance to win up to **$6,000 in cash prizes** and turn their business ideas into reality.

![Marshall Zuccarelli achieves 1st place and $6,000 for business M1 Pool Maintenance at 2025, 4th annual Charlie Walker Pitch Challenge. Photo provided by Salina Area Chamber Commerce](https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2026/1/1767632868400.png)
*Marshall Zuccarelli achieves 1st place and $6,000 for business M1 Pool Maintenance at 2025, 4th annual Charlie Walker Pitch Challenge. Photo provided by Salina Area Chamber Commerce*

*Salina Area Chamber of Commerce*

**Open to start-ups and businesses operating for three years or less**, this challenge is a golden opportunity to secure funding and gain exposure. Last year's event distributed **$16,000 in prizes** to the top five finishers, with the 2025 winner, **M1 Pool Maintenance**, using their prize money to launch their venture successfully.

Marshall Zuccarelli, owner of M1 Pool Maintenance, shared his experience: "The Charlie Walker Pitch Challenge was an experience I will never forget. When I enrolled in the Business Essentials course at Salina Central High School in August 2024, I could not have anticipated where I would be eight months later. This competition highlighted the incredible opportunities available in the Salina community for individuals who are willing to work hard to pursue their entrepreneurial goals. It opened my eyes to the depth of business-minded talent and support that exists throughout our community."

He added, "I am sincerely grateful to the judges and to everyone who works behind the scenes to make this challenge possible. Your time, effort, and commitment make a meaningful impact on aspiring entrepreneurs in our community."

**This year's event is presented by Bennington State Bank and JRI Hospitality**, with cash prizes for the top five finishers: **$6,000 for 1st place, $4,000 for 2nd place, $3,000 for 3rd place, $2,000 for 4th place, and $1,000 for 5th place**. Additional sponsors include **Network Kansas and VentureDash**.

**How to Apply:**
- Submit an initial application with a business plan and a short **2–3-minute video** introducing your business idea.
- **Deadline: March 16th, 2026, at 11:59 pm**.
- There is **no charge to apply**, and it's open to residents of **Saline County, as well as Dickinson, Ellsworth, McPherson, and Ottawa counties**.

All applications will be scored, and **ten (10) applicants** will be selected to advance to the in-person pitch competition. Competitors will have **7 minutes to pitch their business plan** to a panel of judges, similar to shows like 'Shark Tank'. Judges will ask questions and score the businesses, with the top five finishers announced at the end of the night.

**About the Challenge:** Named in honor of **Charlie Walker**, an iconic Salina businessman who founded companies like Blue Beacon International and Rolling Hills Zoo, this event continues his legacy of supporting entrepreneurship. Renee Duxler, CEO & President of the Salina Area Chamber of Commerce, said, "We have some generous business owners in this community who are eager and interested in supporting the next generation of small business for the area. This event has evolved from a group of them, to include the Walker Family, wanting to encourage entrepreneurship in a fun and educational way. This pitch competition really does achieve that."

**Workshop Opportunity:** The Salina Area Chamber of Commerce will host a **'How To Pitch Your Business' workshop on Thursday, February 12th at Kansas State University-Salina Campus** for interested competitors. To register for the workshop, click [here](https://projectopensalina.com/training/).

**For More Information:**
- To apply for the challenge, click [here](https://goventuredash.com/competitions/834).
- Email Jaclyn Crow at **jcrow@salinakansas.org** for additional details.


                        
                        Marshall Zuccarelli achieves 1st place and $6,000 for business M1 Pool Maintenance at 2025

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