{"id":13251,"date":"2025-07-21T15:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T15:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/13251\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T15:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T15:59:09","slug":"term-sheet-next-lerer-hippeau-makes-its-first-senior-venture-hire-with-ron-zori","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/13251\/","title":{"rendered":"Term Sheet Next: Lerer Hippeau makes its first senior venture hire with Ron Zori"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ron Zori\u2019s first brush with venture capital came during his freshman year at Columbia University, when he went to the Mercer Hotel in SoHo for coffee. As Zori tells it, he just happened to strike up a conversation with someone at a table nearby, who just happened to be Lukasz Gadowski, one of the founders of the brand-new startup Delivery Hero<\/a>. Gadowski ended up introducing Zori to his lead investor, Kite Ventures\u2019 Edward Shenderovich, who hired Zori out of college to support him in investing in companies like Dataminr, Lyft, and Plated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That turned into leadership roles at Knotel and Public, side quests as an a16z scout and angel investor, and now Zori\u2019s new gig\u2014the first senior venture hire at the venerated New York firm Lerer Hippeau.\u00a0\u201cSerendipity,\u201d as Zori describes it. His new boss, Ben Lerer, disagrees. \u201cI\u2019ve never met anybody in my life like that,\u201d Lerer tells me from his firm\u2019s headquarters overlooking the Hudson River, about a 10-minute walk from the Mercer Hotel. \u201cI feel like Ron meets people like this twice a week.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Known for its seed-stage investments in the New York consumer space<\/a> into companies like Warby Parker and Casper, Lerer Hippeau recently announced<\/a> its ninth fund, a $200 million vehicle that will look to capitalize on the growing buzz in sectors like AI and fintech. And despite the firm\u2019s 15-year history, Lerer says that Zori\u2019s hire marks the first time they\u2019ve brought on a senior venture partner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zori, a pro soccer player in Israel before going to Columbia, has always had an eye on growth. He worked as the head of revenue at Knotel, a WeWork competitor that eventually filed for bankruptcy during the pandemic, joining the company in its infancy and helping take it to $370 million in recurring revenue. While at Knotel, he would meet with startups renting office space and occasionally write angel checks. His first was into a small fintech company called Public, which would gain unicorn status just a couple of years later. Zori joined in 2020 to work on business development.\u00a0It was his second time experiencing a startup\u2019s rocketship moment, as Public went from a few thousand users to a few million. \u201cThat was the rush,\u201d he tells me. \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019m here for.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the end of 2022, Zori left to focus on his own investments, raising capital for special-purpose vehicles and deciding whether to start his own fund. He\u2019d kept up a friendship with Lerer over the years, often feeding him deal flow. They also co-invested, including in Duet, a health tech startup led by former Knotel executive Jonathan Goldberg that helps nurse practitioners launch their own practices. \u201cRon was existing in my head as something between an emerging manager and a super angel,\u201d Lerer tells me. He thought that Zori could have the most impact on startups by joining a platform with capital and resources like Lerer Hippeau. \u201cIt feels like a real value to get to work with somebody who you have an existing, trusted relationship with,\u201d Lerer says.<\/p>\n

Zori started at the firm two weeks ago and will have a hefty portfolio during this critical juncture for the venture industry. One priority will be looking at sectors where Zori has been in the trenches of \u201czero-to-one,\u201d namely fintech and consumer, and figuring out where they\u2019re headed. Another will be building Lerer Hippeau\u2019s pipeline to Israeli and European startups, with Zori planning to spend about two months of the year out of Israel. \u201cThis marriage with Lerer Hippeau, I think, provides us the opportunity to actually give these founders the best platform as they expand to the U.S. market,\u201d Zori says.<\/p>\n

Leo Schwartz
X: @leomschwartz<\/a>
Email: leo.schwartz@fortune.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sara Braun curated the deals section of today\u2019s newsletter. Subscribe here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Venture Deals<\/p>\n

– Qlub<\/a>, a Dubai-based contactless payment solution provider for restaurants, raised $30 million in funding. Shorooq and Cherry Ventures led the round major and were joined by e&, Mastercard, Mubadala Investments, and Legend Capital.<\/p>\n

– Stellaria<\/a>, a Grenoble, France-based sustainable nuclear energy company, raised \u20ac24 million ($27.9 million) in funding. One Ventures and Supernova Invest led the round and were joined by CEA Investissements, Schneider Electric, Exergon, and Technip Energies.<\/p>\n

– Paddle<\/a>, a London-based SaaS billing solutions provider, raised $25 million in funding. CIBC Innovation Banking led the round.\u00a0<\/p>\n

– Alix<\/a>, a San Francisco-based AI-powered estate settlement platform, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Acrew Capital led the round and was joined by Charles Schwab, Edward Jones Ventures, Initialized Capital, Scribble, Magnify Ventures, and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

– Mango<\/a>, a Monterrey, Mexico-based provider of risk infrastructure for the construction industry, raised $3 million in seed funding. Ironspring Ventures led the round and was joined by Brick & Mortar Ventures, Great North Ventures, Buildtech Ventures, Incisive Ventures, and First Check Ventures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

– Dockware<\/a>, a Tulsa-based AI-powered transportation and logistics company, raised $2.5 million in seed funding. Zenda VC led the round and was joined by Four More Capital, Karman Ventures, Hustle Fund, Starframe Capital, Cortado Ventures, and Operator Stack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Private Equity<\/p>\n

– LawnPRO Partners, backed by HCl Equity Partners, acquired Green Machine Lawn Care<\/a>, a Kingston, Penn.-based provider of lawn care, tree care, and pest control services. Financial terms were not disclosed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Exits<\/p>\n

– doValue agreed to acquire a majority stake in The coeo Group<\/a>, a Dormagen, Germany-based debt collection services provider, from Waterland Private Equity. Financial terms were not disclosed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other<\/p>\n

– LS Power agreed to acquire bp Wind Energy North America, bp\u2019s U.S. onshore wind business. Financial terms were not disclosed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

People<\/p>\n

– Antler<\/a>, a global venture capital firm, hired Lola Masha as partner in the company\u2019s Lagos office. She previously was at Bolt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is the web version of Term Sheet, a daily newsletter on the biggest deals and dealmakers in venture capital and private equity. Sign up<\/a> for free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ron Zori\u2019s first brush with venture capital came during his freshman year at Columbia University, when he went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[45,49,48,137,3430,5671,2927,5672,5673],"class_list":{"0":"post-13251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entrepreneurship","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-private-equity","14":"tag-startups","15":"tag-term-sheet","16":"tag-venture-capital"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}