Israeli cyber company Wiz announced that it will be transferring the bulk of its monetary funds outside of Israel due to fears around the proposed judicial reform, N12 reported on Monday evening.
Wiz is a cloud security startup founded by Israeli Assaf Rappaport and headquartered in New York City.
According to estimates published by N12, the company holds tens of millions of dollars in Israeli assets which it intends to transfer abroad. It will keep enough money in Israel to enable its continued operations in the country and pay the salaries of Israeli employees.
Other Israeli companies transferring funds abroad
Two other Israeli start-up companies -Papaya Global and Disruptive Technologies Venture Capital - also announced their intentions to withdraw their funds from Israel on January 26, in response to judicial reforms being advanced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Papaya Global is a payroll platform that allows companies to use a single program to keep track of their entire global workforce's payroll information.
The company, valued at $3.7 billion in 2021, provides payroll services to companies such as Microsoft and Toyota.
“Following Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s statements that he is determined to pass reforms that will harm democracy and the economy, we made a business decision at Papaya Global to withdraw all of the company’s funds from Israel,” Papaya Global co-founder and CEO Eynat Guez tweeted in January. “In the emerging reform, there is no certainty that we can conduct international economic activity from Israel. This is a painful but necessary business step.”
Disruptive Technologies manages a total of approximately $250 million in venture-capital funds.
“Assuming the reform, which is a legal coup, happens, economic instability will be created in the State of Israel, when in practice there will be one authority that will do what it wants, including corrections and changes in taxation and the way companies work,” founder Tal Barnoach told Israeli business news outlet Calcalist in January. “Economies are built on stability. I am now in London. I met my investors, and they are very worried. They say that if the reform passes, it is not clear to them if they will continue to invest in Israel, and they may have to make a change because they do not want to be at the mercy of one authority.”