Top Israel Startup Nation Mergers and Acquisition Stories For 5783

Imperva (from Linkedin)

The Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashanah – begins at sundown Friday night. The year 5783 will end and 5784 will begin. Here is the Jewish Business News list of the top mergers and acquisition stories about Israeli startups that came in 5783. Israel is not called Startup Nation for nothing, so it, of course, had some very bog exits over the past year.

IronSource Completed $4.4 Billion Unity Software Merger
Last November, Israel-based ironSource, which offers a multi-media platform, and the American video game company Unity Software, finalized their $4.4 billion merger. The merger came after the deal hit a bump in the road when another company stepped in to offer its own buyout proposal for Unity.

Founded in 2010, ionSource offers a mobile ad mediation platform, mobile ad network, and a data-driven user acquisition platform for games which it boasts closes the monetization and marketing loop to empower game developers to turn their games into successful businesses.

IronSource went public on the NYSE through a SPAC merger in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was valued at $11.1 billion, a 94% premium on its current value on the NYSE… Read more here

Imperva Sold To Thales for $3.6 Billion
In July, Israeli-founded cybersecurity company Imperva revealed that it was getting bought out by French multinational company Thales for $3.6 billion. Imperva is currently owned by private equity firm Thoma Bravo, which bought the company for $2.1 billion in 2018.

Founded in 2002 by Amichai Shulman and Mickey Boodaei, Imperva calls itself a cybersecurity leader with a mission to protect data and all paths to it. The company states that it protects the data of over 6,000 global customers from cyber attacks through all stages of their digital transformation. ”Our products are informed by the Imperva Research Lab, a global threat intelligence community, that feeds the latest security and compliance expertise into our solutions,” explains Imperva… Read more here 

Keter Plastic Selling for $1.3 Billion
Keter Plastic, an Israeli company that produces home and garden plastic products, is looking for a buyer. According to a July report in Calcalist, BC Partners, which has owned the company for seven years, is looking to bring in $1.2 billion Euros ($1.31 billion) from the sale. This is about the same as Keter’s current debt.

The sale price is said to be just half of the company’s value in 2016 when BC Partners acquired Keter Plastic.

In September of 2021, Keter Group filed the forms with the SEC ahead of a planned initial public offering IPO on the New York Stock Exchange NYSE. At the time, Keter Plastic hoped to raise hundreds of millions of dollars and expected a valuation of $2 to 2.5 billion from the IPO.

Keter Plastics was founded in Jaffa back in 1948 by Joseph Sogol, the year that Israel was established. Sogol’s sons inherited the company from him. In 2016, an 80% controlling interest in Keter was to private equity firm BC Partners for $1.7 billion.

Its products are made from resin. Keter boasts annual sales amounting to over $1 billion. The Keter Group distributes to 25,000 retail outlets globally, including nearly all of the top 250 retailers worldwide – with many of these relationships dating back more than 25 years… Read more here

Azrieli Group Sold Its Minority Holdings in Compass for $900 Million
In June, Israel real estate firm Azrieli Group sold its stake in the U.S. company Compass Datacenter for about $900 million. Azrieli owned 32.5% of Compass. Azrieli reported that based on its original investment made in 2019, the firm saw a 44% Internal Rate of Return from Compass.

Azrieli Group said that the divestment of Compass came as part of the Group’s strategy to identify new growth engines. In 2021, the Group decided to expand its operations and investment in the industry, to enter the European market and to acquire a full holding in Green Mountain, which is currently active in Norway, Germany and England… Read more here

Israel’s Rapyd Acquired PayU For $610 Million
In August, Rapyd, an Israeli fintech startup, announced plans to acquire PayU Global Payment Organization from the Netherlands-based investment company Prosus for $610 million. The deal, however, does not include the acquisition of PayU’s India, Turkey and Southeast Asia operations.

Rapyd said its acquisition of PayU is a strategic move that continues the company’s global expansion across emerging markets in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. Combined with PayU GPO, Rapyd now boasts 100+ transacting countries, over 250,000 merchant clients globally, and expansion of the Rapyd Global Payments Network to over 1,200 payment methods supported by 18 settlement hubs… Read more here

Hewlett Packard Snags Israel’s Axis Security For $500 Million
In March, Hewlett Packard Enterprise revealed that it is acquiring Israel’s cybersecurity startup Axis Security for $500 million. Axis, which has developed cloud-based Security Services Edge (SSE) has raised $500 million to date.

Founded in 2018 by its CEO Dor Knafo and CTO Gil Azrielant, Axis Security boasts that it can enable any organization to “quickly deliver tightly managed global access to employees, partners and other stakeholders through a purpose-built zero-trust cloud security platform.” Unlike legacy solutions that create excess access and unnecessary risk, Axis Security declares that its unique Application Isolation Technology “assures access to only the resources required.”

Axis Security’s Security Services Edge (SSE) platform addresses the need for improved application performance and increased network security as the number of remote users increases and as enterprises continue to migrate applications to the cloud… Read more here

Check Point Bought Former Unicorn Perimeter 81 for $490 Million
In August, Check Point, Israel’s most renowned cybersecurity firm, acquired Israeli cybersecurity startup Perimeter 81 for $490 million. Unfortunately, for Perimeter, until recently the firm had a billion plus valuation and the coveted unicorn status.

Check Point said that it intends to leverage Perimeter 81´s capabilities and integrate them into Check Point Infinity’s architecture to deliver a unified security solution across the network, cloud, and remote users, powered by industry leading threat prevention.

Founded in 2018 by Sagi Gidley and Amit Barkat Perimeter 81 is a cloud and network security company that specializes in developing safe distant networks for businesses using a zero-trust architecture. They designed its solution to take the place of legacy security equipment such as VPNs and firewalls. Zero-Trust is just what it sounds like: trust no one or anything when defending against hacking attacks by being absolutely sure that you have the best protections. The company has raised a total of $165 million to date… Read more here

Tenable To Acquire Israeli Startup Ermetic for $350 Million
Ermetic, an Israeli cybersecurity startup, is set to be acquired by the American cybersecurity company Tenable. Reports indicate that the negotiations are in their advanced stages and that the deal is worth $350 million. Tenable previously acquired Israeli cybersecurity company Indegy for $78 million in 2019.

Ermetic currently employs 140 people and has raised $97 million to date… Read more here

And there were two big Startup Nation merger and acquisition deals that might be in trouble:

EU Putting Wrench Qualcomm’s Acquisition of Autotalks
Qualcomm’s planned takeover of Autotalks, an Israeli startup that develops V2X solutions for use in smart cars, is in jeopardy after European regulators raised concerns. The European Commission said that it has accepted the requests submitted by 15 EU Member States to assess the proposed acquisition of Autotalks by Qualcomm under the EU Merger Regulation (‘EUMR’).

Qualcomm is an American firm, but it operates in Europe and so the company needs European approval for such a deal.

At issue here is the V2X technology developed by Autotalks that collects data on traffic jams, stop lights and speed zones… Read more here

Sale of Israel’s Phoenix Insurance to Abu Dhabi State Fund Falls Through
The move by Abu Dhabi Development Holding Co. (ADQ) to buy a controlling interest in Israel’s largest insurance concern, Israel Phoenix Holdings, has failed. In December 2022, ADQ revealed plans to acquire a 25% stake in Phoenix for roughly $680 million.

In a notification made to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Phoenix Insurance said, “The parties have come to a mutual understanding regarding termination of the Term Sheet inter alia in light of the potential regulatory limitations that would have arisen from the acquisition of the controlling stake by the Consortium resulting in potential restrictions for several members of the Consortium to undertake additional material investments in Israel… Read more here