Assaf Rapaport Photo: Nathaniel Tobias
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2023 started off pretty bleak when it comes to capital raisings reported by Israeli startups. This amount stood at $270 million in January – about a tenth of the amount raised by the Israeli startups just a year before. So although in the last month we have seen a nice growth in the amount of reported capital raisings, but the lion’s share of it comes from one company.
The man who brought in almost half of the recruits
You can’t talk about February 2023 and my recruitment without talking about Wiz. Assaf Rapaport’s cyber unicorn – which has been in the headlines in recent weeks precisely around the issue of legal reform in Israel – has not raised money since October 2021, but this week the floodgates opened and Wiz reported raising $300 million based on a valuation of $10 billion. Rapaport was quick to clarify that in accordance with the company’s announcement earlier this month, all the money it raised will remain in the company’s accounts outside of Israel. However, alongside the headlines about the valuation and fundraising, it’s important to remember that the company reached $100 million ARR (an important metric, even if not without problems) about six months ago. Today, according to the company, about a third of the Fortune 100 companies are among its clients, including Salesforce, Colgate and BMW.
But Rapaport and Wiz weren’t the only recruits this month. Another standout this month is the company Via, which announced a fundraising round of $110 million at a valuation of $3.5 billion. The recruitment comes just two months after the Ministry of Transportation announced the end of the pilot of the Bubble Dan service operated by Via. Despite this and even though Israel is the home market, the share of its activity in Israel is negligible compared to the rest of the world.
A total of 20 Israeli startups this month reported raising capital in the aggregate amount of 731 million dollars. About 65% of the total of these recruitments came from only three startups – Wiz, Via and the Chain Reaction company of Mellanox and TSMC veterans. These were also the only three startups in the growth stages (B rounds and beyond) that raised money this month, when the other 17 transactions reported were of young startups (pre-seed to A rounds). This is a trend that we have been seeing since mid-2022, when the situation in the private market began to align with the public market. Half of all the startups that raised this month were also startups that raised in Seed rounds, in what looks like a continuous construction of a new generation of Israeli startups for the years to come. Among all these startups, Descope stood out – a young startup that raised one of the largest seed rounds in the history of Israeli high-tech – at $53 million.
Compared to February of last year, we stand at about half of the total fundraising reported by the Israeli startups – 1.4 billion dollars. If we go back to 2020 and 2019, we will find that this month the Israeli startups raised more capital. However, at least in view of the last few months it is too early to say if we are changing direction.
In the exits sector, we recorded two small ones this month. In one of them, the startup Canonic Security was acquired by Zscaler only a year after it came out of the shadows with a capital raising of 6 million dollars. The amount of the purchase was not reported. In another deal, the startup Xperiti was purchased in a deal worth several million dollars.
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The recruitments of February 2023
An Israeli startup has managed to link anonymous crypto wallets to profiles in social networks
“We encountered no difficulties”: a new Israeli startup needed only a month to raise 11 million dollars
Thanks to an Israeli startup revealed today, the packages you order will arrive faster
The shark who raised investments for his startup: “The legal coup is an economic and social disaster”, but feels safe to manage the money in Israel
Via raised $110 million at a valuation of $3.5 billion
Israeli entrepreneurship will make sure that medicines don’t kill us
The Israeli startup Descope announces one of the largest seed rounds in Israeli high-tech
Three childhood friends founded a startup that protects your open source. Now Shlomo Kramer and Eyal Waldman are investing in them
Samsung invests in the Israeli startup Ironblocks
PayPal invests in the Israeli startup Chaos Labs which was revealed today
The founder of Wiz and the entrepreneur who sold a company to Apple are investing in the new startup Entitle
Israeli veterans Mellanox, NVIDIA and TSMC raised $70 million for their startup
Assaf Rapaport and Wiz have now raised 300 million dollars, which will remain outside of Israel
Microsoft veterans reveal a new startup that puts hybrid work in order
Jacob Perry raises $3 million for the MICA AI startup
NT Tao company raises 22 million dollars to produce a compact nuclear reactor
BloomX Raised $8 Million to Help Pollinate – No Seed Bees
AiDock raised $15 million
$18 million to OpenEyes, which uses computer vision to assess the risks of car accidents
Ledge of the Melio veterans raised 9 million seed dollars
The February 2023 exits
Canonic Security was sold to Zscaler about a year after coming out of the shadows
Xperiti was sold to a French company for several million dollars