Yoav Samet

Yoav is a managing partner at StageOne ventures, leading the fund’s presence in Silicon Valley. Yoav currently represents StageOne on the boards of Apprente, Epsagon, Theator, and vHive.
Prior to StageOne, Yoav served as Vice President of Corporate Development at Cisco, leading the company’s M&A and venture investment activities related to about a third of Cisco’s business, including Cisco’s Service Provider, Mobile Wireless, Semiconductor, and software-enabled Services and Solutions businesses. Yoav was also responsible for Cisco’s corporate development coverage for Europe, Israel, Canada, and Emerging Markets.
During his 13-year tenure at Cisco, Yoav led 20 company acquisitions for Cisco valued at just over $7 billion, and ran a team that managed a $1 billion portfolio of Cisco’s equity investments including over 50 direct investments, as well as LP positions with over 20 venture capital funds worldwide.
Prior to joining Cisco, Yoav was a principal at Pitango Venture Capital, where at the time he helped establish Pitango’s Silicon Valley presence. Yoav has earlier operational background as founding Head of Engineering and General Manager at Colordesk, a software company in the imaging space, and in engineering leadership positions with Electronics for Imaging (NASDAQ:EFII).
Yoav is a veteran of Unit 8200’s technology division at the Israeli Defense Force, where he was an officer in charge of numerous communications related advanced technology projects. Yoav holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, as well as BS and MS in Computer Science from the Hebrew University. Yoav is also a member of the Executive Committee American Friends of the Hebrew University (Pacific Northwest Division).