Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen takes on new role at Japanese investment firm

Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen has been appointed by SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son as strategic advisor, a more senior role bringing him closer to top decision-making. Cohen joined SoftBank five years ago as head of Israeli operations within Vision Fund 2. He will continue operating in the Israeli market, focusing on data centers for AI and cloud processing and chip investments. Cohen was mainly involved in cybersecurity investments, including Wiz, Claroty, and Cato Networks. SoftBank's Wiz investment at a $12 billion valuation was sold at a $32 billion valuation about a year later. Cohen led a $150 million investment in Claroty at a $2 billion valuation in 2021; Claroty's valuation has since doubled to $4 billion. SoftBank reported an $8.2 billion profit from Intel shares and a $1.7 billion increase in Vision Fund value in Q2 2026 due to ByteDance.

Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen has been appointed by SoftBank founder, chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son as strategic advisor, a more senior position that brings him closer to the top decision-making levels in the organization and to Son himself, "Globes" has learned. Cohen joined the Japanese investment fund five years ago as the head of Israeli operations within the partnership established by Vision Fund 2. He will continue to operate in the Israeli market but will focus more on the fund's new areas of activity: financing and developing data centers for AI and cloud processing and investing in chip companies in that field. According to senior executives in the tech industry, Cohen spends extended periods in the US and Europe meeting with executives in the field, but there has not yet been a known investment in which he actively participated. Since joining SoftBank, Cohen has mainly been involved in investments in cybersecurity companies, including Wiz, Claroty and Cato Networks. The three investments have turned out to be a successful bet for Vision Fund, which joined the investment in Wiz at a late stage - in the secondary fundraising in 2025, and purchased shares at a valuation of $12 billion - selling at a major profit at a company valuation of $32 billion about a year later, raking in a profit of several hundred million shekels. Previously, Cohen led an investment at the end of 2021 of $150 million in cybersecurity company Claroty at a valuation of about $2 billion, according to PitchBook. Although SoftBank did not continue to invest in the company in recent years, Claroty's valuation has doubled to $4 billion, with the company even considering an IPO, although the move has since been frozen. The investment in Shlomo Kramer's Cato Networks also led to an increase in valuation, from $3 billion at the time of SoftBank's first investment in 2023 to $4.8 billion last year. Even before Cohen joined SoftBank, it had made a number of investments in Israel - some of them successful - including in Lemonade and eToro, which both held successful Wall Street IPOs, while several other investments led to write offs including Cybereason, StreamElements and Rapid API. Cohen has enhanced his role in the fund after the changes that took place at Vision Fund, which reached the end of its cycle. With the onset of the tech crisis in Europe in 2022-2023, senior managers, including the fund's CEO, Rajeev Misra, Cohen's direct manager, left the UK branch to found an investment fund in the UAE, and Cohen moved to work under Vision Fund's US branch. In recent years, Masayoshi Son has decided to shift the focus of the company's investments from Vision Fund to direct investments by SoftBank's parent company in data centers, AI infrastructure and direct capital injection into OpenAI, chip company ARM and Intel. The IPO of ARM is considered one of the best chip company flotations in recent years, with its stock rising 400% in just two years. Earlier this month, SoftBank reported a profit of $8.2 billion from an investment in shares Intel made when the stock was at its lowest, which brought the fund's total profit to $2.2 billion in the second quarter of 2026. The value of the Vision Fund recorded a $1.7 billion increase in the value of its investments in the second quarter of 2026 due to the rise in ByteDance's valuation. SoftBank also holds shares of OpenAI through Vision Fund 2 but unusually did not report a change in profit or loss from the company's operations in the second quarter. But in the first quarter of 2026 reported a $42.1 billion rise in the fund's value due to a sharp increase in OpenAI's valuation. In the preceding quarter, SoftBank had reported that the valuation of its investment in the AI giant was nearly $80 billion, after investing $34.6 billion. In total, SoftBank pledged to invest $64.6 billion in Sam Altman's company and raised a $40 billion bridge loan and sold shares in T-Mobile and Nvidia. No response to this report has been forthcoming from Yossi Cohen and SoftBank.