Vertex Ventures Israel Partners with StepStone Group for Fund IV Recapitalization

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL – January 20, 2022 - Vertex Ventures Israel (“Vertex Israel”), a leading early stage venture capital fund and a member of the Vertex Ventures network, announced today a recapitalization of Vertex Israel Fund IV (“Fund IV”) in partnership with StepStone Group, a leading secondaries investor across private markets.

StepStone was the sole investor in the GP-led strip sale transaction, valued at approximately $160 million, inclusive of future commitments. The transaction provides partial liquidity to existing Fund IV limited partners while allowing both Vertex and its fund investors to realize further upside as the portfolio’s assets mature.

“StepStone’s reputation and scale in both the secondaries market and venture capital made them the clear partner of choice for this transaction,” said Ran Gartenberg, General Partner and CFO of Vertex Ventures. “Their knowledge of the Israeli market, experience in closing similar GP-led transactions and creative portfolio construction allowed us to provide an elegant liquidity solution for our Fund IV investors as well as a runway for future strong performance.”

“We have a long history of working with top-performing venture and growth equity managers on liquidity solutions for their portfolios on an exclusive basis, and our partnership with Vertex Israel continues this strong legacy,” said Brian Borton, Partner at StepStone. “The scale and due diligence synergies with our new colleagues from Greenspring Associates were very apparent as we created a win-win-win solution for Vertex Israel, their Fund IV limited partners, and StepStone.”

Jefferies acted as exclusive financial advisor to Vertex Israel. Ropes & Gray LLP acted as legal counsel to Vertex Israel. Proskauer Rose LLP acted as legal counsel to StepStone.

About Vertex

Vertex Ventures Israel is a leading early-stage venture capital investor with over $1.2 billion under management. Over the years, the Vertex Israel team has invested in more than 100 companies, including Waze, CyberArk and SolarEdge and more recently OwnBackup, Axonius, Verbit, Yotpo, DataRails and others.

Vertex Israel is part of a global Vertex Ventures network of funds, operating in Silicon Valley, Israel, Southeast Asia, China and India with over $5 billion of assets under management. Learn more here.

About StepStone

StepStone Group Inc. (Nasdaq: STEP) is a global private markets investment firm focused on providing customized investment solutions and advisory and data services to its clients. As of September 30, 2021, StepStone oversaw approximately $519 billion of private markets allocations, including $121 billion of assets under management. StepStone’s clients include some of the world’s largest public and private defined benefit and defined contribution pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies, as well as prominent endowments, foundations, family offices and private wealth clients, which include high-net-worth and mass affluent individuals. StepStone partners with its clients to develop and build private markets portfolios designed to meet their specific objectives across the private equity, infrastructure, private debt and real estate asset classes.