Photo of Ariel Sterman, Partner

Ariel Sterman

Partner
Israel

Roadmaps

Biography

Ariel Sterman is a partner in Bessemer’s Israel office where he focuses on data infrastructure, SaaS, fintech, and gaming companies in Israel and Europe. He was featured on Forbes 30 Under 30 for Israel.

Prior to joining Bessemer, Ariel spent several years at Stripes Group, a growth equity firm in NYC, where he spearheaded the firm’s Israeli sourcing efforts and drove its first investment in the geography (Monday.com’s $50M Series C). He also played an active role in supporting companies across the firm’s consumer internet, fintech, and SaaS portfolio.

Ariel is passionate about philanthropic innovation and sustainable impact models. He is a co-founder of Good Today, a non-profit tech platform for daily charitable giving, and a board member of Knock Knock Give a Sock, an organization dedicated to bringing together communities and their neighbors experiencing homelessness.

He earned his business degree with concentrations in finance and marketing from NYU Stern.

Portfolio Highlights

Getting to know Ariel

 

Family photo

Personal mission, professional impact

Driven by his belief that professional pursuits should align with personal ones, Ariel found that investing in Israeli entrepreneurs was the perfect intersection of his values of doing what’s best for his family and community. Born and raised in New Jersey, Ariel and his family moved to Israel in 2018 with the added goal of making a meaningful impact on the Israeli startup ecosystem.

men around table having a discussion

Learning from everyone

Ariel teaches weekly classes on Jewish spirituality and philosophy for students and tech workers. His love for teaching and learning is deeply intertwined with his approach to investing. Ariel approaches every interaction with entrepreneurs with an authentic desire for mutual growth, and always views those meetings as an opportunity to learn, regardless of whether there’s an investment fit.

“Be Curious; Not judgmental.” -Ted Lasso

Four men sitting on couch with large rubber duck
Qwak Founders Yuval Fernbach, Lior Penso, Ran Romano, and Alon Lev

Building trust for the long run

In 2020, Ariel met the founders of Qwak as they were setting out to build an end-to-end machine learning ops platform. Despite high conviction in the idea and team, he passed on investing in their seed round, baring his honest thoughts and concerns to the team in a detailed email. Over the next two years, Ariel supported the founders with introductions, invitations to events, and featuring them on The B Sides, his podcast about entrepreneurship. When they reconnected prior to Qwak’s Series B, the founders addressed each of Ariel’s concerns in his original “pass” email, demonstrating their significant achievements and the evolution of their core thesis. This two-way transparency forged a close relationship, and ultimately led to Bessemer’s investment in Qwak at the end of 2022.

Two men having conversation with headphones and microphones
Melio CEO and Co-Founder Matan Bar and Ariel

The art of inquiry

In a rapidly-changing world, Ariel believes that success can’t be achieved by simply replicating someone else’s playbook. Largely inspired by his wife’s approach to behavioral therapy, Ariel’s support of founders is collaborative and is centered around asking the right questions, allowing founders come to their own conclusions, and helping them weigh the different paths forward.

Portfolio Companies

Indicates Enduring

Insights

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