On Monday morning, venture capitalist Ben Weiss expected to be signing off on the final details of a deal to sell one of his start-up portfolio companies to a big European entity. Instead, he was running frequently to his spare bedroom bomb shelter with his wife and young daughters in tow, as rocket warning sirens blared across his home in Tel Aviv.

Weiss, the New Zealand-born, Sydney educated son of high-profile corporate raider Gary Weiss, has forged a successful VC career since moving to Israel in 2010, where his firm Alicorn manages over $250 million of assets from more than 100 family office investors from Australia, China, Europe, Asia and the US.