The top AI startups in Israel in 2026 are VAST Data (AI data infrastructure, valued at $30 billion), Decart (real-time generative video), Wonderful (enterprise AI agents), DriveNets (AI networking) and Qodo (AI code review). Israel's strength is AI infrastructure and applied AI rather than giant foundation models. Twelve, below.
Israeli AI looks different from Silicon Valley's. Few companies here train frontier models; instead the country has produced the plumbing that AI runs on (storage, networking, chips and GPU efficiency) and a wave of startups putting AI agents to work inside enterprises. 2026 brought record rounds, with Wonderful reaching a $5 billion valuation barely a year after founding, and a string of acquisitions by Apple, Nvidia and ServiceNow. These are the twelve to know, as of October 2026.
Israel's most valuable private tech company, and the data layer under many of the world's AI clusters.
VAST builds a single platform for storing and processing the enormous datasets AI training and inference depend on, and sells it to cloud providers, AI labs and enterprises. Nvidia is both a partner and a shareholder.
It raised $1 billion at a $30 billion valuation in April 2026. Founder Renen Hallak runs the company from New York while most engineering sits in Israel.
The breakout generative AI company of 2026, and the subject of a reported $5.5 billion bid.
Decart makes AI models that generate interactive video in real time, first shown off with Oasis, a playable AI-generated game world, plus software that makes models run cheaply across different chips.
Nvidia backed its $300 million round at a $4 billion valuation in May 2026. In October, Calcalist reported Amazon was nearing a deal to buy it for about $5.5 billion, after talks with Anthropic ended.
Went from founding to a $5 billion valuation in about eighteen months.
Wonderful deploys AI agents that handle customer conversations by voice, chat and email in the customer's own language, and builds them to work inside the client's existing systems.
It raised $150 million in March 2026 and $550 million in September at a $5 billion valuation, and LinkedIn named it one of Israel's top startups of 2026.
Builds the networks that connect thousands of GPUs, and is one of Israel's largest private companies.
DriveNets started by turning carrier networks into software running on standard hardware, an approach AT&T adopted at scale. It has since pivoted much of its growth to networking for AI data centers, where connecting GPUs efficiently is a bottleneck.
It raised $410 million at an $8.5 billion valuation in June 2026.
The maker of Facetune, now betting on its own open-source AI video models.
Lightricks built a large consumer business with photo and video editing apps, then moved into generative AI with LTX Studio and its open LTX video models, which run on consumer hardware.
2026 has been a reset year: it made layoffs in May and June and announced it would split into two companies. It remains one of Jerusalem's flagship tech employers.
Builds AI that checks code as well as writing it.
Formerly CodiumAI, Qodo uses AI agents to review pull requests, generate tests and enforce standards, aimed at teams whose AI coding assistants now produce more code than humans can review.
It raised a $70 million Series B in March 2026, bringing total funding to about $120 million, and is on CTech's and Forbes Israel's 2026 lists of the most promising startups.
Ranked the most promising Israeli startup of 2026 by CTech.
Irregular (formerly Pattern Labs) runs a security lab that tests how advanced AI models behave under attack and whether they could be misused, and works with leading AI labs on those evaluations.
It has raised about $80 million and sits at the intersection of Israel's two strongest categories, AI and security.
Turned an internal developer portal into the control plane for AI agents in engineering.
Port gives engineering organizations one place to see their services, standards and workflows, and increasingly to let AI agents act on them safely.
It has raised $158 million, including a $100 million Series C, and appears on LinkedIn's 2026 list of top Israeli startups.
Cuts the cloud and AI computing bill automatically, in real time.
ScaleOps continuously right-sizes Kubernetes workloads and GPU usage based on live demand, so companies stop paying for idle capacity without risking performance.
It raised a $130 million Series C in March 2026 at an $800 million valuation as AI infrastructure costs became a board-level concern.
Builds tailored AI agent solutions for large organizations, fast.
Unframe delivers custom AI applications for enterprises on its own platform, promising working deployments in days rather than long consulting projects.
Founded in 2024, it raised a $50 million Series B in May 2026, bringing it to about $100 million in funding, and placed second in CTech's 2026 ranking.
The ironSource founders' new company, and one of 2026's biggest early rounds.
ZyG runs a platform of AI agents that handle e-commerce marketing and operations end to end, from product listings to campaigns.
Founded in 2025 by Omer Kaplan and the team behind ironSource, it raised a $58 million seed and a $60 million Series A within months in 2026, reaching a $500 million valuation.
Helps brands see and shape how ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI engines describe them.
Brandlight tracks what large language models say about a brand and its competitors, and shows marketers which sources and content change those answers. It is a leader in the new field of generative engine optimization.
It raised a $30 million Series A in February 2026.
By valuation, VAST Data, which raised $1 billion at a $30 billion valuation in April 2026. It was founded by Israelis and does its R&D in Israel, with headquarters in New York. Among companies built in the generative AI era, Decart ($4 billion, May 2026) and Wonderful ($5 billion, September 2026) are the largest.
AI21 Labs, founded in 2017, was Israel's main foundation model developer, but it cut more than 60% of its staff in May 2026 as frontier model training consolidated around a handful of US labs. Most Israeli AI companies now build on top of models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and open-source providers rather than training their own.
Apple bought audio AI company Q.ai for about $1.5 billion in January, Nvidia bought Illumex, ServiceNow bought Traceloop, Pyramid Analytics, ai.work and Sweep, and Nebius bought Tavily. Decart was reported in October 2026 to be nearing a sale to Amazon at around $5.5 billion, though no deal had been announced.
AI infrastructure (VAST Data, DriveNets, ScaleOps and the chip companies), AI for software engineering (Qodo, Port), AI security (a whole category of its own), and enterprise AI agents (Wonderful, Unframe, Notch). Real-time generative media is a newer strength, led by Decart and Lightricks.
Overwhelmingly in Tel Aviv, with clusters in Herzliya, Ra'anana and around the Technion in Haifa. Many keep a go-to-market office in New York or San Francisco while engineering stays in Israel.