Despite the Rosh Hashanah holiday, the Start-Up Nation didn’t lose any of its momentum this week, with a number of large deals reported.
SNYK, a cybersecurity firm founded in Tel Aviv, raised $300 million in funding at a valuation of $8.5 billion in a round led by Sands Capital Ventures and Tiger Global, according to Reuters. Investors also paid another $230m. to buy existing shares of the company, the report said.
That would make it one of the highest-valued Israeli companies ever to raise venture funding. It would also bring the total funding raised by Snyk, founded in 2015, above $1b.
Prior to the newest investment, Snyk had raised $752m. in seven funding rounds. In March 2021, the company raised $175m. and sold $125m. worth of shares at a valuation of $4.7b. In 2020, Snyk raised $200m. in September and $150m. in January.
Snyk’s technology is used by developers to identify vulnerabilities in their software, and is used by teams at large companies like Google and Salesforce. The funding will be used for product development and to improve its technology, the report said.
Israeli-founded online gambling giant 888 said Thursday it will acquire the non-US business of gambling site William Hill for £2.2b. ($3b.) from Caesars Entertainment. William Hill, founded in 1934, is one of the UK’s leading bookmakers, with over 1,400 betting shops across the UK, and about two million active UK customers online.
The acquisition will create a global online betting and gaming leader, with the opportunity for 888 to significantly increase its scale, diversify its product mix and accelerate revenue growth, the company said. 888 was founded in 1997, and trades on the London Stock Exchange at a market cap of £1.46b. Its shares were down 2.6% on Thursday afternoon on the news.
Earlier this week, QUANTUM MACHINES said it secured $50m. in Series B funding in a round led by Red Dot Capital Partners to expand its growth into quantum cloud computing and drive its worldwide distribution.
The Tel Aviv-based company was founded in 2018 with a platform to coordinate quantum processors, with advanced capabilities and infrastructure to enable researchers to execute the highly complex algorithms necessary for tackling the most advanced challenges facing quantum computing, the company said.
The company has customers in 15 countries, and in the past year has tripled its team of physicists and engineers based in Israel, France, Germany, Canada, and the United States. Quantum Machines said it will use the funds to continue developing its technologies, as well as opening offices in new countries to grow its team and target talented quantum developers around the globe.
Rosh Ha’ayin-based Agent Video Intelligence (AGENT VI) said this week it was acquired by Irisity AB, a publicly traded Swedish AI video analytics company, for $67m. in cash and shares. Agent Vi was founded in 2003, and offers software with solutions including real-time video analysis and alerts, video search and business intelligence. The company had raised $28m. over the years, with its last funding round in 2016. The two companies together have global operations with offices in Sweden, Israel, USA and Singapore, a network of over 1,000 resellers and partnerships with dozens of leading security monitoring companies, Irisity said.
GUARDIAN OPTICAL TECHNOLOGIES, which designs sensors that automobile manufacturers use to produce safer cars, was acquired by Gentex Corporation, a publicly traded supplier of electro-optical products for the global automotive, aerospace and fire protection industries. Industry sources indicate the value of the deal was about $17m. Tel Aviv-based Guardian, which was founded in 2015, had raised some $11m. in three funding rounds over the years.
Finally, Petah Tikva-based GLOBAL-E said it would offer 12m. shares in a secondary offering that would be worth some $850m. The selling shareholders will receive all of the proceeds from the offering, and Global-e will not receive any proceeds, according to the provider of a platform for global e-commerce payments.