“Several of you over the last few months have thanked me for coming to Israel – there is no country I’d rather be in other than the U.S. I feel blessed to be here today,” said Brendan Dillion at the opening of his remarks during the Israel Private Markets Summit. The Partner, Co-Head of Credit & Capital Markets, and Head of Capital Formation at Veritas Capital was giving a talk to a room of 500 guests on the intersection of government and technology.

“We had an epiphany in the 1990s about investing in government services,” he explained. “The characteristics we saw were that they were undercovered in private equity; there were long-term contracts of 5-7 years in nature, and they were sticky and hard to lose.” Today, the company invests across four main sectors: Aerospace Defense and National Security, Education, Sustainability and infrastructure, and Healthcare.

Dillion was speaking at the Israel Private Markets Summit, which saw C-level, GP, and LP decision-makers discuss topics and market trends in private equity, venture capital, private debt, real estate, and infrastructure. The summit took place at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in Tel Aviv and in the context of war in the Middle East and a presidential election campaign in the United States.

This year, the summit highlighted fields suitable for alternative investment managers, CIOs, and investment committee members from large institutional investors, insurance companies, pension funds, provident funds, sectorial funds, family offices, HNWI, bank nostro managers, endowments, universities, and kibbutzim. It included speakers from Brookfield, Apollo, and Permira, and was co-sponsored by Jefferies and Clifford Chance.

“The U.S. government is the largest tech investor in the world. It is more than all venture capital combined totaling about about $200 billion a year,” Dillon added. Veritas Capital has been investing for more than 25 years and today its portfolio companies have aggregated revenues of $23 billion, driven by the U.S. government.

For Veritas Capital, global events help drive its investment opportunities. In recent years alone, events such as Brexit, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the COVID-19 pandemic have allowed it to explore investment opportunities across multiple sectors. One of its most prominent portfolio companies includes Peraton, a national security and technology company offering service areas in space, intelligence, cyber, defense, homeland security, citizen security, and health. Today it is responsible for providing information during President Biden’s daily intelligence briefings.

Veritas Capital was established in 1992. The firm manages approximately $40 billion in assets under management and specializes in investments in sectors that are at the intersection of government and technology considered national priorities. The fund is ranked by Preqin as the best-performing buyout fund in the PE industry for 2023.