Tech Buzz: Israel's hi-tech market gets three new unicorns, three IPOs

Three new Israeli companies reached unicorn status this week after raising money at valuations above a billion dollars.

JULY 29, 2021 13:33

The founders of Fireblocks (photo credit: YULIA NAR) — The founders of Fireblocks

(photo credit: YULIA NAR)

Even by the stratospheric standards of Israel’s hi-tech sector, this has been a crazy week. Three new Israeli companies reached unicorn status this week after raising money at valuations above $1 billion. Israel also saw two new Nasdaq IPOs, and a few big acquisitions.

Fireblocks, a platform that helps traditional institutions move into the digital asset space for payments, gaming, NFTs and digital securities, said Tuesday it raised $310 million in Series D funding, raising its valuation to $2b. The Tel Aviv-based company has raised a total of $489m. since its inception in 2019. The company, which also has offices in New York, said it will use the funds to continue its strategic expansion, scaling business lines and adding more customers and partners to its ecosystem.

Insurtech platform At-Bay raised $185m. in a Series D round of financing, bringing its valuation to $1.35b. The latest round is the company’s third round in the past 18 months and brings its overall funding to $272m. The company focuses on cyber insurance in the US, a field that is growing rapidly due to the increased prominence of cyberattacks on organizations but is mostly dominated by traditional insurance providers. The Tel Aviv-based company was founded in 2016 and currently employs about 120 people, split between offices in Israel and California.

IoT (Internet of Things) company Wiliot raised $200m. in a Series C funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The company did not reveal its valuation for the round, but insiders believe, with such a large round and backing from the largest venture capital fund in the world, it is safe to say that it is probably above $1b. The company, based in Caesarea, was founded in 2016, uses IoT Pixel tagging technology, computers the size of a postage stamp that eliminate reliance on batteries in order to vastly accelerate IoT.

Atera, a Tel Aviv-based IT management company helping businesses move to a remote work model, said Wednesday it completed a $77m. Series B funding round. The company’s platform combines remote monitoring and management with help desk, reporting and operations management in a single intuitive system. Founded in 2011 with offices in New York and the Netherlands, Atera said it will use the funds to focus on driving further global expansion and developing new product innovations.

Nym Health, whose AI tech product automates medical coding, announced $25m. in new funding. Following Nym’s October 2020 Series A, this latest round brings the company’s total funding to $47.5m. The Nym platform modernizes hospitals’ revenue-cycle management using direct-to-billing, fully autonomous medical coding that reduces insurance denials and operational expenses, accelerates payment cycles and maximizes audit readiness for healthcare providers. The Tel Aviv-based company said the new investment will be used to scale product development and accelerate adoption in emergency departments, as well as expanding its footprint in urgent care centers, and growing the company’s New York office.

Treeverse, the creator of lakeFS, an open-source technology that brings streamlined data life cycle management and version control to data lakes, announced $23m. in Series A funding. The Tel Aviv-based company, which has bootstrapped since it was founded last year, said the funds will help it accelerate the development and adoption of its solution.

Cannabis-tech company Univo pharmaceutical said it raised NIS 11.1 million from Nir Zuk, the founder of cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks. Univo has operated since 2017, and its shares are traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Zuk will receive 5% of Univo’s shares based on a price of NIS 4.62 per share, and will receive an additional 5% of the company when its share price reaches NIS 7.10. The company’s share price was up 23% in midday trading on the news.

Univo is one of the few medical cannabis companies in Israel that controls the entire value chain of cannabis production, the company said. Last June, Univo acquired 51% of the control in MediPharm pharmacy in Holon for NIS 5.5m. Zuk’s investment decision follows a review of the players in the medical cannabis market and Univo’s promising potential.

Infinipoint said it raised $11m. at it launched its Device-Identity-as-a-Service (DIaaS), a comprehensive device identity and security-posture solution to secure device access. The Tel Aviv-based company said it already works with major identity providers including ForgeRock, Okta, Ping Identity and Azure Active Directory, as well as business services such as Salesforce, Google Workspace, Office 365 and AWS.

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Cyolo, which makes a Zero Trust Network Access solution for enterprises and organizations, said it secured a $21m. Series A funding round. Over the past year, Cyolo has doubled its value quarter-by-quarter, and has been expanding partnerships with global customers and service providers, the two-year-old Tel Aviv-based company said.

Edge Gaming, a platform connecting Esports groups and gamers, said it raised $2m. in a pre-seed round. The company’s platform allows any club in the world to set up a training program for its fans to create a whole new user experience. The start-up has already started working with some of the leading groups in the world, it said.

On the IPO scene, e-commerce fraud protection platform Riskified was set to begin trading Thursday at a price of $21 per share on the New York Stock Exchange. The offering, which came in at a higher price than expected, raises $363m. for the nine-year-old Tel Aviv-based company, at a valuation of $3.3 billion.

The company's artificial intelligence technology helps merchants identify fraudulent customers immediately.

REE Automotive completed its special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger to begin trading on the Nasdaq market under the ticker symbol REE. The company, which wants to help global mobility companies build electric and autonomous vehicles, raised $288m. with the offering, less than originally expected.

Native advertising giant Outbrain completed its Nasdaq IPO earlier this week, raising $160m. at a valuation of $1.1b. The shares, which trade under the ticker symbol OB, premiered at $20, and hovered around the same price Wednesday. The price came in significantly less than the Tel Aviv-based company was expecting, and was much less than the $2.6b. its rival, Taboola, raised in its IPO a month earlier.

Taboola recently bought US advertising solutions company Connexity for $800m. in a cash and shares deal. Taboola raised some $526m. in its SPAC merger on the Nasdaq at the end of June.

Jacada, a classic Israeli hi-tech company that has provided software for the customer service industry since 1990, was acquired by Uniphore, an American software company that offers Conversational Service Automation (CSA). The price of the acquisition was not disclosed. The Herzliya-based company had gone public with a Nasdaq IPO in 1999, and later sold parts of its legacy business for $26m. in 2008.

Finally, iAngels, a women-led, Israel-based venture capital firm and investment platform, said this week it closed $55.5 million in funding its first institutional fund, bringing its total assets under management to over $300m. iAngels Ventures invests in Israeli hi-tech and is anchored by a $25m. investment from the European Investment Fund (EIF). This investment, the largest the EIF has made in Israel to date and after a multiyear vetting process that examined all Israeli VCs, is a direct benefit of Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020), the company said.

Founded in 2014, iAngels has produced 22 profitable exits and is on track for its most successful year ever, with eight recently announced or completed exits representing an expected aggregated value of $13b. Among those exits are Arbe, eToro, Applitools and Simplex.