Impact First Investments

Impact First Investments was built on the idea that measurable social outcomes and venture returns are not in tension if the company is engineered correctly. It is one of the older impact-investing firms in Israel and it does not treat impact as a marketing layer over a conventional fund.

The thesis is to back companies whose core product produces a quantifiable improvement in health access, affordability, or outcomes, alongside the financial returns expected from an early-stage venture investor. That maps naturally to digital health and medical devices, with attention to underserved populations, low-resource clinical settings, mental health, chronic disease management, and care models that reach patients who fall through the cracks of conventional healthcare. AI is increasingly central to the portfolio rather than a sidebar, particularly where it lowers the cost of delivering specialist-level care. The firm is comfortable with B2B models selling into health systems, payers, and employers, and with B2B2C plays that ride those distribution rails to reach patients.

Checks land in the one to five million dollar range at Seed and Series A. The firm will lead at Seed when the impact thesis is clear and the commercial path is credible, and it participates at Series A in companies it has tracked or where the syndicate dynamics call for an experienced impact lead. Geography is centered on Israeli founders, with portfolio companies typically targeting global markets. The firm is unusually rigorous about impact measurement, expecting founders to articulate outcome metrics that go beyond engagement and to commit to tracking them with the same discipline they apply to revenue.

The team is small and oriented around founders who genuinely want their company to do something in addition to scale. The diligence process treats impact as load-bearing. Founders who use the language of impact as a positioning move usually figure out quickly that this is not the right fund. Founders who actually mean it find a partner who will engage at depth on outcome design and how to defend it commercially.

The operating support concentrates on the places where impact-driven companies tend to over-promise and under-deliver: outcome measurement, payer and employer contracting that ties price to value, and the hard work of avoiding mission drift as the company scales. The firm’s network reaches into impact-aligned LPs, foundations, and global development institutions that often serve as customers, partners, or co-investors. Impact First is direct about what is out of scope. Pure consumer wellness without a meaningful access or outcomes dimension does not fit, nor do hardware-heavy plays that do not reach the populations the firm prioritizes. For founders building digital health or medical device companies whose theory of value rests on actual improvements in health outcomes for real populations, Impact First is one of the few investors in the region with the focus, the rigor, and the appetite to lead a round on those terms rather than around them.