Venture capitalist and entrepreneur Chemi Peres says investing in Izzy is a key path to changing the perception of Israel on the world stage, as the Nati Dinnar-led SVoD platform looks to expand the ambition of the Israel Entertainment Fund.
Israeli content streamer Izzy has been on a growth trajectory over the past two years helped, in part, by the presence of a new financial backer.
Chemi Peres
In early 2023, venture capital investor Nechemia ‘Chemi’ Peres came onboard as an investor, C21 can reveal, lending meaningful financial resources to the streamer that has a mission to bring Israeli content to the world.
Access to new capital has enabled the streaming platform, which is led by CEO and co-founder Nati Dinnar, to make some much bigger bets in the content space, including becoming the exclusive international home of Kugel, the prequel to popular Israeli dramedy Shtisel.
For Peres, who is the son of the late former Israeli prime minister and president Shimon Peres and a major advocate for peace in the Middle East, his involvement with Izzy goes beyond his typical work in the VC sphere, where investors traditionally seek a return and exit within a specified number of years.
Peres tells C21 his goal in lending his financial resources to Izzy is to help Israel display its “soft power” (ie. its stories, creative talent and production expertise) as a means of changing the perception of Israel on the world stage.
Izzy is not a typical investment for Peres, who is the co-founder and managing general partner of Pitango Venture Capital, but he believes in both its ability to generate returns and help to stem the rising tides of antisemitism across the globe.
“Over the years, I’ve watched what other countries are doing through drama series on major platforms like Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon and others. I’ve seen how people are falling in love with other countries, getting to know them better and learning about them much more when you tell a story. It’s like opening your door and window and letting other people look at what’s going on in your country, what kind of language people speak, what they care about, their interests, values, social codes, stories, personalities, landscape and food,” he says.
Kugel is the prequel to popular Israeli dramedy Shtisel
“In many ways, it’s displaying your soft power. And so the more good content we create, the more people will get to know Israel and understand what it is for real, and not just what they are being fed by social media.”
While Peres officially became involved in Izzy prior to the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, the horrific events of that day have strengthened his conviction that Izzy is an important “tool” in helping international audiences understand the country.
The growth of the streamer comes against a complex backdrop in which Israel’s response has won both support and criticism. The UK is among those that has seen fiercely divided opinion, with the BBC repeatedly under fire for its coverage of the Gaza conflict.
Part of the problem, according to Dinnar, is that many of the Israeli shows greenlit and acquired by global streamers – such as Fauda, Tehran and Homeland – simply reinforce the audience’s perception of Israel. Izzy is attempting to provide a remedy for that by programming a broad range of Israeli content, including dramas, comedies, daily dramas, reality series, cooking shows and video podcasts.
Nati Dinnar
“The world doesn’t see the diversity because most of the content executives pick up is stereotypical to what [audiences] know about Israel, so we want to put other stuff on there,” he says, adding that the streamer is continuing to experiment with programming that will help retain subscribers versus bringing new ones in.
With Peres now onboard and lending a hand both financially and strategically, the Izzy team is exploring the possibility of bringing new investors to the table. Dinnar says conversations are underway.
“Can we do this on our own? Do we want to bring in more strategic players? There are many people in the Israel support space who are very interested to do what we’re doing, and I’m getting outreach from people. My guess is we’ll probably look into bringing more investors in, and that will probably happen in the second half of 2025, because I feel there’s an opportunity there.”
Peres notes that potential backers must understand Izzy is not a typical investment opportunity. “We’re more looking for like-minded partners. What we’re looking for is investors who understand the mission statement and come with the right mindset to understand why this is important,” he says.
One of the key elements of Izzy’s strategy is original content. In order to expand the platform’s pipeline of originals, Dinnar and Izzy last year partnered with the Jewish National Fund (JNF) USA to establish the Israel Entertainment Fund (IEF).
The non-profit organisation is described as Israel’s “largest fund” dedicated to supporting TV and film production in communities affected by the October 7 attacks. Initially, it raised US$3m, with several projects receiving additional outside investment on top of that.
Fighters follows soldiers injured during the Israel-Hamas war
Explaining the thinking behind the fund, Dinnar says: “We need to help this content be created. Production costs are rising, it’s very hard to get the television stations to invest in content with high production values and believe that there is an upside to it internationally. So we had this idea of forming the Israel Entertainment Fund, with the belief we would find people from inside and outside the industry who believe in storytelling from Israel.”
Dinnar and Peres met with Russell Robinson, CEO of JNF USA, to pitch him the idea of starting a fund, ultimately convincing him to commit the first US$3m. Projects financed through the IEF are carried on Izzy. However, it is not an exclusive arrangement and third-party platforms are also able to acquire international rights to IEF-funded projects.
Thus far, the IEF has backed two projects. The first, Fighters, is a three-part documentary series following soldiers injured during the Israel-Hamas war as they recover in hospital. The second is Red Alert, a drama series based on the events of October 7, following the stories of five citizens who found themselves at the centre of the attack by Hamas.
Lawrence Bender, the high-profile American producer whose credits include Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, both Kill Bill movies and An Inconvenient Truth, is an executive producer on the project. It is produced by Green Productions, Bender Brown Productions, Israeli broadcaster Keshet 12 and international distribution outfit Keshet International. Filming wrapped last month and the series is scheduled to be ready for launch to coincide with the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks.
Dinnar says the project has the “highest production value per-episode ever for a drama made in Israel,” with Keshet International set to launch global sales at Mipcom in October. The hope, says Dinnar, would be for the project to secure a sale to one of the major global SVoD services so that international audiences will “see the true story of October 7 and the resilience of the citizens. All of them were in terrible dilemmas that you can only write in a drama,” he says.
Beyond these two projects, the IEF is continuing to raise funds with a view to financing more projects and helping the Israeli production sector level up. “The mission statement is not only to distribute the content and bring it to audiences, but also to support the content-creation ecosystem in Israel,” says Peres.
