# Dror Nahumi

> Dror Nahumi is a General Partner at Norwest Venture Partners, a multi-stage global VC firm managing $15.5 billion in assets. Based in Menlo Park, California, he leads Norwest's Israeli investment portfolio - a practice he helped build since the firm established its Israel presence in 2009. A former Bell Labs research engineer who developed the RCELP speech coder (now the CDMA standard for North American cellular), Nahumi transitioned from deep tech to entrepreneurship before landing in venture capital in 2010. He has backed companies that have been acquired by Microsoft, Google, EMC, and Symantec, and has seeded unicorns including Gong.io, VAST Data, and Weka.

- **Role:** General Partner at Norwest Venture Partners
- **Organizations:** Norwest Venture Partners, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, AT&T Bell Labs, MiBridge, I-Link, Axonlink, ECI Telecom
- **From:** Israel
- **Nationality:** Israeli-American
- **Education:** Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
- **Known for:** Developed the RCELP speech coder at AT&T Bell Labs, which became the standard for CDMA cellular communications in North America, Built and leads Norwest's Israeli investment practice since 2009, Board member of Gong.io, which became a major revenue intelligence unicorn

## Career timeline

- **1980-1984** — Studied Electrical Engineering at Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
- **mid-1980s** — Senior Research Engineer at AT&T Bell Labs; developed RCELP speech coder, now the standard for CDMA cellular in North America
- **early 1990s** — Founded MiBridge, a VoIP software company
- **mid-1990s** — Became President of I-Link, a US-based VoIP service provider that acquired MiBridge
- **late 1990s-early 2000s** — Served as CEO of Axonlink, an optical components startup developing alternatives to CWDM and DWDM
- **2004-2010** — Executive Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer at ECI Telecom, leading M&A, business development, and strategic marketing
- **2009** — Norwest established its Israeli investment office
- **2010-present** — Joined Norwest Venture Partners as General Partner; leads Israel-focused investments

## Achievements

- Developed the RCELP speech coder at AT&T Bell Labs, which became the standard for CDMA cellular communications in North America
- Built and leads Norwest's Israeli investment practice since 2009
- Board member of Gong.io, which became a major revenue intelligence unicorn
- Board member of VAST Data, a cloud storage unicorn
- Board member of Weka, a data platform company
- Led investments in CyberX (acquired by Microsoft), Velostrata (acquired by Google), ScaleIO (acquired by EMC), Fireglass (acquired by Symantec)
- Board member of SolarEdge Technologies (NASDAQ: SEDG), a public solar energy tech company
- Part of Norwest's team managing $15.5 billion across 17 funds

## Latest updates

- **2025-09** — Norwest led Red Access's $17M Series A for lightweight SSE cybersecurity; Nahumi joined the board
- **2025-09** — Norwest participated in Fabrix Security's $8M seed round for AI-native identity security; Nahumi on board
- **2024-11** — Featured in Alpha Partners 'Driving Alpha' podcast on building unicorns in venture capital
- **2024** — Norwest investing from NVP 17, a $3 billion fund, with Nahumi continuing to lead Israeli portfolio

## Links

- Website: https://www.norwest.com/team/dror-nahumi/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drornahumi
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/dnahumi

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/dror-nahumi
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-19