ISRAEL – YL Ventures, a Mill Valley, CA and Tel Aviv, Israel-based seed-stage venture capital firm investing in Israeli cybersecurity startups, announced that Sounil Yu, former Chief Security Scientist at Bank of America, will join as a full-time Chief Information Security Officer-in-Residence.
Yu’s cybersecurity expertise further enhances YL Ventures’ ability to provide entrepreneurs – pre- and post-investment – first-hand insights into product development, customer needs and how global enterprises evaluate cybersecurity vendors and their solutions. Prior to joining YL Ventures, he spent seven years at Bank of America, most recently as their Chief Security Scientist, leading a cross-functional team focused on driving cybersecurity innovation by leveraging unconventional thinking and alternative approaches to address key challenges in cybersecurity. Yu is the creator of the influential Cyber Defense Matrix, a tool for organizing, evaluating and discovering security capabilities and solutions, and the inventor of the DIE Resiliency Framework. Yu is a cybersecurity professional, with 22 granted patents encompassing threat modeling, intrusion monitoring, endpoint security, attribution and other cybersecurity and IT disciplines. His knowledge, experience, industry-wide reputation and considerable network will help him vet investment candidates and advise start-up founders. In a progression from his current participation in the YL Ventures’ Venture Advisory Board (consisting of 80+ cybersecurity experts and executives from global enterprises), as CISO-in-Residence, Yu will continue to enhance the success of early-stage portfolio companies. Moreover, he will work directly with entrepreneurs pre- and post-investment, supporting their ideation processes, highlighting green field market opportunities, validating their value propositions, refining go-to-market strategies and optimizing their early-stage success in closing paying customers. Led by Managing Partner Yoav Leitersdorf, YL Ventures specializes in investing in cybersecurity companies accelerating their evolution via strategic advice and U.S.-based operational execution, by leveraging a network of CISOs and global industry leaders. Partner & Head of Israeli Office Ofer Schreiber leads the Tel Aviv office together with VP of Marketing, Sharon Seemann. 08/04/2020
