In more bad news for Israel Startup Nation, three more companies are in trouble with two making drastic cutbacks. Earnix, an Israeli fintech unicorn, is laying off 10% of its team, or about 30 people. Karma, an Israeli online shopping startup, is laying off 20 employees, almost 30% of its total workforce. And Selina, an Israeli success story that already had its exit in an IPO, has seen its market cap drop by almost 90%.
Just yesterday JBN reported on three other Israeli companies making cutbacks, Healthy.Io, Corning and Unity Israel (formerly ironSource). So, it seems the 2023 comeback for Startup Nation has yet to materialize.
Founded in 2014 by Daniel Rudasevski and Rafael Museri, Selina says it was built to address the needs of Millennial and Gen Z travelers, blending beautifully-designed accommodation with coworking, recreation, wellness, and local experiences. Custom-built for today’s nomadic traveler, Selina provides guests with a global infrastructure to seamlessly travel and work abroad. But its business model seems to not be practical.
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For 2022 Selina revealed a $725 million deficit against just $184 million in revenues. In October 2022, Selina completed an SPAC merger at a valuation of $1.2 billion. But now the company has a market cap of just $130 million. So, Selina seems like a WeWork knockoff, and, like WeWork, may very well be just a house of cards.
Founded in 2014 by CEO Jonathan Friedman and COO Ronen Yuval-Hoch, Karma is an AI shopping assistant and shopping network that says it is on a mission to make everyone’s shopping better.
Karma’s AI shopping tool powers an automated smart shopping experience on users’ laptops or smartphones to save them time and money. Following a simple download, users start their online shopping journey. Karma incorporates real-time, dynamic merchandise data and alerts users to the lowest available price point. It also automatically integrates and applies valid discount offers, coupons and cash-back rebates from its 20K+ retail partners.
In a statement, Kama said, “Karma confirms that as part of a strategic change that it is currently carrying out, it was decided to also make changes to the workforce in order to deal with the challenges of the market in the best way possible. Karma made the decision to make these changes after a thorough and in-depth process and ultimately decided to focus on its core business from a place of strength and profitability.”
As for Earnix, the company may just be a victim of bad times.
Founded in 2001, Earnix declares that it enables insurers and banks to provide “faster, smarter, and safer prices, and personalized products.”
Earnix provides mission-critical composable and cloud-based intelligent solutions across pricing, rating, underwriting, product personalization and telematics. These fully integrated solutions provide ultra-fast ROI and are designed to transform how global insurers and banks are run by unlocking value across all facets of the business. It has been innovating for Insurers and Banks since 2001 with customers in over 35 countries across six continents and offices in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Israel. Earnix shareholders include JVP, Insight Partners, IGP, and Vintage Investment Partners.
It was just a little over a year ago that Earnix hit the coveted unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation after a $75 million financing round.
