Stephen Curry Faces Backlash Over Israeli Cybersecurity Investments

The Revelation

On January 29, 2026, independent journalist Nate Bear published an investigation through The Grayzone that pulled back the curtain on a side of Stephen Curry few fans knew existed [1]. The NBA's all-time three-point leader — a player synonymous with social justice advocacy, voting rights campaigns, and community empowerment — had been quietly channeling tens of millions of dollars through his venture capital firm into cybersecurity startups founded and staffed by veterans of Israel's most elite military intelligence units.

The report landed like a thunderclap across social media. Within days, the story had been picked up by outlets ranging from Basketball Network to The Nation magazine, and Curry — who has carefully cultivated a public image as one of professional sports' most conscientious figures — found himself accused of a contradiction that cuts to the heart of athlete activism in the modern era [2][3].

Following the Money: Penny Jar Capital

At the center of the controversy is Penny Jar Capital, the early-stage venture capital firm Curry co-founded in 2021. Run day-to-day by Bryant Barr and Rich Scudellari, with Curry serving as a special adviser who helps source deals and provides portfolio companies with his star power, the firm has made at least 21 investments across the technology landscape [4]. In December 2024, Penny Jar filed with the SEC to raise a second fund, signaling the firm's growing ambitions in Silicon Valley [5].

Two investments, however, have drawn intense scrutiny: Zafran Security and Upwind.

Zafran Security

Zafran Security develops AI-powered threat exposure management software used by healthcare systems, financial institutions, insurance firms, and Fortune 500 companies. In 2024, the company raised $30 million in a funding round that included Penny Jar Capital, alongside heavyweight investors Sequoia Capital and Menlo Ventures. By late 2025, Zafran had raised a total of $130 million [6][7].

What sets Zafran apart in this controversy is its leadership. CEO Sanaz Yashar, born in Iran and recruited as a teenager by Israeli intelligence, spent 15 years as an operative in Unit 8200 — the IDF's signals intelligence division often compared to the U.S. National Security Agency. Her life story reportedly helped inspire the hit Apple TV series Tehran [7]. Co-founders Ben Seri and Snir Havdala are also alumni of Unit 8200 and Unit 81, an IDF technology unit specializing in cyber operations and advanced surveillance [1][2].

Upwind Security

Upwind, a cloud security platform, represents an even larger financial commitment. Curry's Penny Jar participated in the company's $50 million seed round in 2023 — a deal co-led by Sheva Capital, the venture fund run by former NBA player Omri Casspi, Israel's first player in the league and Curry's former Golden State Warriors teammate [8][9]. Penny Jar then participated again in Upwind's massive $250 million Series B in January 2026, which valued the company at $1.5 billion and made it a cybersecurity unicorn [10].

Upwind's founders — Amiram Shachar, Lavi Ferdman, and Liran Polak — all served together in the IDF's Mamram unit, the military's central computing division that develops software for defense applications. The company has grown from 150 to over 300 employees and reported 900% year-over-year revenue growth [10]. After October 7, 2023, multiple Upwind staff members were called up as IDF reservists, a fact referenced by company leadership on LinkedIn [1][3].

The Omri Casspi Connection

A key figure bridging Curry's basketball world and the Israeli tech ecosystem is Omri Casspi. The former Warriors player launched Sheva Capital, a $36 million fund, in 2022, followed by Swish Ventures, a $60 million fund focused on cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and AI startups [11][12].

Casspi has described his venture work as a form of "Zionism 2.0," connecting IDF-trained technologists with the venture capital infrastructure that powers Israel's tech economy. He has also served as a behind-the-scenes connector, bringing NBA players to Israel and facilitating investment relationships. It was through Casspi that Curry's Penny Jar was brought into the Upwind deal [1][11].

The Social Justice Paradox

The backlash against Curry is sharpened by the extraordinary height of the pedestal he occupies as a social justice figure. In 2023, Curry won the NBA's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion Award, recognizing his advocacy for voting rights, gender and racial equity in sports, and food insecurity in underserved communities [13]. He serves as co-chair of Michelle Obama's "When We All Vote" initiative alongside Chris Paul and Megan Rapinoe, and has pushed for passage of the Freedom to Vote Act [13].

Through his Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, Curry and his wife Ayesha have provided over 2 million meals and 500,000 books to Oakland students. In 2019, he announced a six-year, $6 million commitment to fund men's and women's golf teams at historically Black Howard University [13]. His wife, Ayesha, has posted humanitarian appeals for Gaza to her 7.8 million Instagram followers [1].

Critics argue this record makes the Israeli tech investments not merely a financial decision but a moral contradiction. Social media responses have been blunt, with users calling Curry a "hypocrite" and saying they had "lost my respect for him" [2][14].

The Broader Context: Israel's Cyber-Military Pipeline

To understand why these investments have generated such intense controversy, it is necessary to understand the unique relationship between Israel's military intelligence apparatus and its booming cybersecurity industry.

Unit 8200, where several of the investee company founders served, is responsible for signal intelligence collection, code decryption, cyberwarfare, and surveillance operations. An estimated 80% of the founders of Israel's approximately 700 cybersecurity companies came through IDF intelligence units, according to a widely cited 2018 study [15]. Alumni have founded globally significant companies including Palo Alto Networks, Check Point Software, and CyberArk.

Source: SecurityWeek / YNet / Israel National Cyber Directorate Reports

Data as of Dec 8, 2025CSV

In 2025, Israeli cybersecurity startups raised a record $4.4 billion across 130 funding rounds — a 9% increase over the $4.03 billion raised in 2024, which itself represented a doubling from $1.9 billion in 2023 [16]. For the first time, global venture capital outpaced domestic Israeli investment at every funding stage, with U.S.-based VCs leading 44 seed rounds compared to Israeli VCs' 35 [16].

The controversy around Unit 8200 intensified in 2025 when The Guardian revealed that the unit had been housing intercepted recordings of millions of Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, data reportedly used to plan airstrikes in Gaza and conduct arrests in the West Bank. Microsoft subsequently blocked Unit 8200 from accessing some cloud services [15].

In 2014, 43 veterans of Unit 8200 signed a public protest letter decrying what they described as abusive surveillance of Palestinian civilians — a rare act of dissent from within Israel's intelligence establishment [15].

The Co-Investor Network

Curry's investments do not exist in isolation. His co-investors in these rounds include some of Silicon Valley's most prominent firms, several of which have their own controversial ties to Israeli military operations.

Sequoia Capital, which co-invested in Zafran, is led in part by partner Shaun Maguire, who has been described as organizing Starlink satellite access for the IDF [1]. Bessemer Venture Partners, which led Upwind's $250 million Series B, includes partner Adam Fisher, who reportedly called for Israel to "pound Gaza with an unprecedented response" [1][10]. Greylock Partners, another Upwind investor, appointed a Unit 8200 veteran to lead its Israel-focused investments [1].

Curry's Silence

As of mid-March 2026, neither Stephen Curry nor Penny Jar Capital has issued a public statement addressing the controversy. Curry has maintained silence on the matter even as the story has spread across international media outlets, from Jordan's Roya News to The Nation in the United States [3][14].

This silence is notable given Curry's history of speaking out on social and political issues. During the Donald Sterling saga in 2014, Curry was among a group of players prepared to boycott a playoff game if the Clippers owner wasn't banned by the NBA [13]. He has used his platform repeatedly to advocate for racial justice, police accountability, and democratic participation.

The NBA's Israel Exception

The Curry controversy unfolds against a broader pattern that critics have called the NBA's "Israel exception" — a tendency among the league's most prominent voices for social justice to remain silent on, or actively support, Israeli government policies [17][18].

Multiple NBA figures, including legends Rick Barry and David Robinson and Commissioner Adam Silver, have made regular trips to Israel, meeting with government officials and running basketball clinics. Some current and former players, however, have broken ranks: Kyrie Irving has shown solidarity with Palestinian causes, and former players Dwight Howard, Tariq Abdul-Wahad, and Etan Thomas have spoken out against the war in Gaza [17][19].

Writer Dave Zirin noted in The Nation that Curry's case is distinct because it involves not just statements or silence but direct financial participation in companies whose founders built their expertise within Israel's military-intelligence infrastructure [3].

The Venture Capital Defense

Defenders of Curry and the broader pattern of investment in Israeli cybersecurity startups make several arguments. First, Unit 8200 alumni have built some of the world's most important cybersecurity companies, and investing in their ventures is standard practice across Silicon Valley. Second, the products these companies sell — threat detection, cloud security, vulnerability management — serve legitimate commercial purposes for hospitals, banks, and governments worldwide. Third, Curry serves as an adviser to Penny Jar, not a day-to-day operator, and individual investment decisions are made by the firm's managing partners [4].

The cybersecurity industry itself notes that the skills developed in military intelligence units — while controversial in their origin — translate directly into defending civilian infrastructure against ransomware, data breaches, and cyberattacks. Zafran, for instance, was founded after an investigation into a ransomware attack on an Israeli hospital [7].

What This Means for Athlete Activism

The Curry episode raises fundamental questions about the limits and coherence of athlete activism in an era when sports stars are simultaneously social justice champions and venture capitalists with diversified portfolios touching global conflict zones.

The growing trend of athletes entering venture capital — from Curry to the Paul brothers' Anti Fund to dozens of other players across professional sports — means that the private investment decisions of public figures will face increasing scrutiny. The question is no longer just what athletes say but where their money goes.

For Curry specifically, the longer the silence persists, the louder the questions become. A player who has never shied away from speaking truth to power on issues of racial justice in America now faces a test of whether that moral framework extends to the intersection of technology, military intelligence, and one of the world's most polarizing geopolitical conflicts.