Aliyah 3.0 Moving to Israel to build for the world
What is ‘Aliyah’ and why does it matter?
In Hebrew, the word Aliyah means “ascent” or “going up.” It is also the word used for moving to Israel.
The choice of word is deliberate. Jewish tradition does not see moving to Israel as ordinary immigration but as an elevation, both geographic and spiritual. For Jews, Aliyah is a return to a place that was always meant to be home, with roots reaching back thousands of years.
Aliyah is also the story of how modern Israel was built. The country was populated, defended and developed by waves of immigrants, and to this day benefits enormously from the people who move here and strengthen its economy, diversity, security and capacity to innovate.
An alternative framing: Aliyah as a product
Historians numbered the Aliyah waves to reflect the different timing, origins and reasons for coming. I would like to propose an alternative framing, using startup vocabulary as we’re in “Startup Nation”.
Software products evolve through versions: 1.0, 2.0 and so on. Applied to Israel, that gives us Aliyah 0.0, 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. As is the case with software products, each version differs in terms of its features.
This article focuses on the latest version: Aliyah 3.0
Aliyah 3.0: Moving to Israel to build for the world
Aliyah 3.0’s key feature is people who could be successful anywhere, choosing to move to Israel and build from here. Jews from places like New York, London or Paris are moving to Israel to (help) build companies that sell to the world.
As Anish Acharya, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, put it in a 2026 interview: “Outside of San Francisco, Tel Aviv is the next best place to be uncompromisingly ambitious and build a global company from day one.”
Other leading investors are drawing the same conclusion. Sequoia just announced that it was closing its London office, leaving it with two offices worldwide: San Francisco and Tel Aviv.
The same is true for AI, the defining technology of this era. Palantir CEO Alex Karp recently said that the only relevant countries in the global AI race are the US, China and Israel.
Not everyone who moves to Israel is a founder of course but they all come to build a new life and in doing so help build modern day Israel.
What makes this wave different than any other is that for the first time, all three common motivations for Aliyah are present at once:
- Existential: Escaping antisemitism (which exploded abroad since October 7th)
- Idealistic: Zionism (the desire to take part in the ongoing Jewish civilizational project)
- Economic: Upward mobility (as the opportunities offered by a modern Israel begin to outcompete many of the world’s leading economies)
The tailwinds behind Aliyah 3.0
For a long time, Jewish professionals who wanted to (help) build a great company stayed close to the capital and the customers, in Silicon Valley, New York or elsewhere and Aliyah was a beautiful idea filed away for “someday.”
As long as Israel trailed on most economic measures, work happened in person and the Diaspora felt safe that made sense.
Today all of those conditions have changed, and Israel added powerful new incentives too.
First, Israel is no longer behind.
- Israel’s GDP per capita is at +$70k and far ahead of countries such as the UK (+$60k), France (+$50k) and many others
- The IMF projects Israel to have the highest real GDP growth among all 38 OECD members in 2026 at 4.5%
- Israel has the most unicorns per capita in the world
- While fighting on multiple fronts, Israeli tech exits in 2026 YTD reached a record $80 billion
- Despite all challenges, Israel ranked eighth in the 2026 World Happiness Report
Second, AI and remote work weakened the old reasons to live abroad.
Building a company used to mean sitting next to the money, talent and customers. Since the pandemic, investors, customers and partners have grown used to meeting, selling and closing deals over video, and distributed teams have become the new normal.
Israel is unusually well placed for this way of working. Almost everyone speaks English, most Israeli startups target international markets from day one, and its time zone overlaps with Europe and Asia during the day and with the Americas in the afternoon and evening.
At the same time, AI tools now let a small team build products, write code, run marketing and automate operations around the clock at a fraction of the cost of a junior hire.
As a result, more Jews in the Diaspora are no longer asking where they have to be to build something, but where they want to be while they build it.
Third, the Diaspora no longer feels as safe.
According to the ADL, the US recorded 6,274 antisemitic incidents in 2025: five times as many as a decade ago. Physical assaults on Jews reached an all-time high and rising antisemitism in the streets, campuses, media and politics push Jews around the world towards Israel.
Lastly, Israel is actively rolling out the red carpet.
Olim and returning residents who arrive between November 2025 and the end of 2026 now pay no income tax on what they earn in Israel in the first years.
On top of the tax benefits come the long-standing benefits: a financial absorption basket, free Hebrew classes, subsidized insurance, tax discounts and many other dedicated benefits, grants and programs.
The message to the Diaspora is clear: Israel wants you here.
The missing feature: capital for immigrant founders
What Version 3.0 lacks is the capital and support to help this new generation of builders to succeed.
That is why we built Aliyah Ventures, the first and only VC dedicated to immigrant founders.
Our thesis is simple:
- Immigrants make exceptional founders. Immigrants (co-) founded 59% of America’s billion-dollar startups, according to the NFAP, and research from Harvard and Stanford explains that the immigrant experience creates the hustle, creativity, resourcefulness and bias to action that great founders need.
- Yet they struggle to raise capital in their new home. Newly arrived founders often look “too new” to local investors. They have not yet built a local track record, network or Hebrew fluency, nor the military-service ties early-stage investors rely on. As a result, fewer than 5% of Israel’s unicorns have an adult immigrant founder.
- Elsewhere, dedicated funds have emerged to solve this problem. Venture funds focused on immigrant founders have proven the financial and social returns of the model in the US, Canada, UK and France.
- Nothing like it existed in Israel, so we built it. We back Olim at pre-seed and support them with capital, access to talent, advice and world-class corporate partners providing office space, cloud space, legal, tax, accounting and other support.
Our vision is that the best founders will no longer have to choose between their identity and ambition.
A new version of an old dream
The dream itself is not new.
Our ancestors wandered the desert for 40 years in pursuit of the promised land.
What is new is that the generation of Aliyah 3.0 sees Israel not as the final destination, but as the platform from which to build for the world.
If you are an immigrant founder or an investor who wants to back that future, let’s talk.
