Shuly Galili

Background

Shuly Galili is a Founding Partner of UpWest, a Silicon Valley-based seed fund focused on Israeli founders entering the U.S. market ¹². She co-founded UpWest in 2012 with Gil Ben-Artzy ³⁴.

Galili earned a B.A. in International Relations from San Francisco State University and studied French at Grenoble University in France ⁵. Before founding UpWest, she held positions at international nonprofit organizations focused on economic development and education ⁵.

In 2000, Galili founded and became Executive Director of the California Israel Chamber of Commerce (CICC), a role she held for over a decade ³⁶. Under her leadership, CICC grew into a platform serving over 10,000 companies and became the largest gateway for technology and business collaboration between Israel and California ⁶. She created and implemented programs that accelerated hundreds of Israeli startups across multiple sectors ⁶. The experience gave her deep insight into the gap facing Israeli entrepreneurs: as she put it, “Israel as an ecosystem is cash rich, market access poor” ³.

In 2012, Galili and Ben-Artzy launched UpWest Labs (later shortened to UpWest), initially as an accelerator program in Palo Alto specifically serving Israeli startups ⁴⁷. UpWest has raised four funds: Fund I (~$2M, bootstrapped from friends and colleagues), Fund II, Fund III ($18.5M, closed 2018), and Fund IV ($70M, closed 2021) ³⁴⁸⁹. As of 2025, the firm manages approximately $100M in total assets ¹⁰ and has invested in more than 100 Israeli startups ¹¹ with a collective aggregate portfolio value exceeding $20 billion ¹.

Beyond UpWest, Galili serves as an advisor to the C100 (a Canadian entrepreneurs network) and previously advised Cracking the Glass Ceiling, a STEM education program for girls in Israel ⁵. She was named among the 100 Most Influential People in Israeli Hi-Tech in 2015 ¹². She contributes articles to publications including VentureBeat, Women 2.0, and Forbes ⁵.

Stated Thesis

UpWest publicly describes its mission as funding, fast-tracking, and frontlining Israeli founders into the U.S. market ¹. Galili has stated: “I co-founded UpWest Labs in 2012. We’ve been building a platform and a fund to invest and support very early stage pre-seed and seed founders, primarily out of Israel” ¹³.

Galili has described UpWest’s investment focus as distributed across three broad clusters: approximately 60% in cybersecurity, analytics, marketing tech, SaaS, B2B, and enterprise cloud; approximately 20% in IoT, healthcare IT, agriculture, drones, and robotics; and approximately 20% in innovative business models including future of work ³.

On what UpWest looks for, Galili has said that they invest in “primarily Israeli founders at the pre-seed, and seed stage, very early, pre-product market fit, who are anxiously looking to meet new customers, to validate their technology” ³.

The firm positions itself as a first-check investor: “In 90% of the cases, we are the first check. When we find entrepreneurs, a lot of times the company consists of just the two founders or three founders. They have literally a demo or a prototype of a product” ¹³.

Inferred Thesis

Note: Shuly Galili invests through UpWest alongside co-founder Gil Ben-Artzy. The portfolio analysis below is based on the same UpWest portfolio used in Gil Ben-Artzy’s profile, as the two share investment decisions. See the Gil Ben-Artzy profile for the full portfolio breakdown.

Based on 61 verified UpWest portfolio investments (approximately 61% of the firm’s 100+ total investments ¹¹), the following patterns emerge:

Sector Allocation (computed from 61 verified portfolio entries)

• Cybersecurity / Security: 12 companies (20%) — SentinelOne, CyberX, CyCognito, Zenity, Rotate, Raven, Levl, SecuredTouch, Javelin Networks, SlickLogin, Flowmill, Stealth Cybersecurity
• Enterprise SaaS / B2B Software: 11 companies (18%) — HoneyBook, Stampli, Deeto, Salespeak, ONDiGO, Comeet, Senexx, Simpo, Tillion.ai, TrialKit, Jolt
• AI / Machine Learning: 6 companies (10%) — Anyword, Imubit, Darwin, Ecton, Elio, BOLTX
• Healthcare / Biotech: 5 companies (8%) — Canopy, Latica, Lynx.md, Genoox, SwiftShift
• DevOps / Developer Tools: 4 companies (7%) — CodeFresh, Loadmill, PerfectScale, Aspecto
• Agritech / Climate: 3 companies (5%) — BeeHero, InnerPlant, Zone7
• Fintech / Payments: 2 companies (3%) — Balance, Livble
• Consumer / Marketplace: 4 companies (7%) — Donde, Drippler, VeedMe, Peer5
• IoT / Hardware / Autonomous: 4 companies (7%) — Airobotics, uMake, Exo Technologies, Navmatic
• Analytics / Data: 3 companies (5%) — Waycare, vBrand, Neura
• Other: 7 companies (11%) — Mobilize, Gifted, jaco, Torch, Unity SCM, invi Messages, Qlika

Stage Distribution

Virtually all investments are at pre-seed or seed stage. Check sizes have scaled with fund size: Fund I deployed $25K-$300K per company; Fund III averaged $250K-$400K at pre-seed targeting ~8% equity ³; Fund IV deployed up to $4M per company ⁸. As of 2021, seed rounds averaged $4-5M (up from $1-2M in 2012) ¹⁴. The firm evaluates approximately 1,000 startups annually and invests in 6-8 per year ³.

Geographic Concentration

100% of portfolio companies are founded by Israeli entrepreneurs. The firm sources 90% of deals from Israel and 10% from the U.S. ³. Portfolio companies maintain R&D in Israel while establishing headquarters and go-to-market in the United States.

Founder Profile Patterns

The portfolio strongly favors Israeli technical founders building enterprise-grade technology. Cybersecurity and enterprise SaaS dominate, reflecting Israel’s deep cybersecurity talent pool (many founders with intelligence/military backgrounds). Galili explicitly seeks founders at the pre-product/market fit stage who are “anxiously looking to meet new customers, to validate their technology” ³.

Co-investor Patterns

As a first-check investor, UpWest frequently precedes larger institutional rounds. Notable confirmed follow-on investors include SignalFire (Stampli Series B) ³. The firm reports over $3 billion in total follow-on funding raised by portfolio companies ¹.

Notable Gaps

Despite Galili’s stated 20% allocation to “IoT, healthcare IT, agriculture, drones, and robotics” ³, the verified portfolio shows only 3 agritech/climate companies (5%) and 4 IoT/hardware companies (7%) out of 61. The actual portfolio skews more heavily toward cybersecurity (20%) and enterprise B2B software (18%) than the stated thesis suggests. Fintech exposure is minimal at 3% (2 companies) despite being listed as a focus area.

Portfolio

Note: As Galili and Ben-Artzy co-invest through UpWest, the portfolio is shared. See the Gil Ben-Artzy profile for the complete portfolio table. Key investments below.

This table shows a representative subset. UpWest has invested in more than 100 companies total ¹¹ (the firm’s portfolio page lists 90+ ¹); 61 verified investments are documented in the Gil Ben-Artzy profile.

Notable Exits: SlickLogin (acquired by Google, 2014), CyberX (acquired by Microsoft, 2020), Senexx (acquired by Gartner, 2014), Flowmill (acquired by Splunk, 2020), SecuredTouch (acquired by Ping Identity, 2021), ONDiGO (acquired by Gong, 2018), SentinelOne (IPO on NYSE, 2021) ¹.

In Their Own Words

On the gap UpWest addresses:

“Israel as an ecosystem is cash rich, market access poor.” ³

On being a first-check investor:

“In 90% of the cases, we are the first check. When we find entrepreneurs, a lot of times the company consists of just the two founders or three founders. They have literally a demo or a prototype of a product.” ¹³

On what she looks for in founders:

“We do invest in primarily Israeli founders at the pre-seed, and seed stage, very early, pre-product market fit, who are anxiously looking to meet new customers, to validate their technology.” ³

On getting personal with founders:

“It gets personal — fast.” Being an early-stage investor requires understanding “the founder’s motivations, values, and beliefs.” ¹⁶

On the early-stage mindset:

“Gritty, scrappy, and messy — your mantra.” Early-stage investing requires embracing “the scrappy, messy, day-to-day grind.” ¹⁶

On the investor’s own differentiation:

“What is it that makes you unique and differentiated as an investor in the startup universe?” ¹⁶

On maintaining transparency during uncertainty:

“In times of uncertainty and great challenges, it is always crucial to maintain a high level of communication and transparency with both founders and investors.” ¹⁰

On Israeli entrepreneurs:

“The ingenuity and persistence of Israeli entrepreneurs are reasons to remain optimistic and bullish as investors in this market.” ¹⁰

On Silicon Valley:

“I think Silicon Valley is a state of mind more than a physical place.” ¹⁴

On distributed teams:

“It takes specific founders… the CEO needs to create a cohesive environment, even though the team is distributed.” ³

On demystifying venture capital:

“We need to demystify a lot of things in this industry, especially the idea that successful VCs have to be grown out of a certain background such as coming from an elite intelligence unit, top school, specific industry or gender, etc.” ¹²

What Founders Say

Oz Alon, Co-Founder and CEO of HoneyBook (via UpWest website):

“The UpWest team is exceptional at helping you immerse yourself in the US market so you can meet your real customers and ultimately get a foothold where it matters the most.” ¹⁷

Tomer Weingarten, Co-Founder and CEO of SentinelOne (via UpWest website):

“UpWest helped us create momentum — the entrepreneur’s ultimate weapon. The UpWest community is still a part of our company culture, it is like a family.” ¹⁷

Eyal Feldman, CEO and Co-Founder of Stampli (via UpWest website):

“Operating early in Silicon Valley alongside the UpWest team opened a whole new world of possibilities for Stampli.” ¹⁷

Shely Aronov, CEO (via UpWest website):

“Being in Silicon Valley makes a huge difference… this is a place where people don’t judge you for having massive dreams.” ¹⁷

Note: All founder quotes above are sourced from the UpWest website and are firm-curated testimonials. No independently sourced founder testimonials specifically about Shuly Galili were found after dedicated searching across Twitter/X, podcast transcripts, and press coverage. LinkedIn recommendations exist but could not be verified verbatim from the public profile view ¹².

Sources