The past few weeks have been relatively good for the Israeli VC scene. Companies are being acquired on a weekly basis, showing the quality and the strength of the Israeli startups. We are all used to reading about Israeli acquisitions done by Microsoft (Recent examples include Kidaro and Yadata) or IBM (In fact, IBM has been cleaning the Israeli storage market, acquiring FilesX, Diligent, and XIV). Those companies have been operating in Israel for a long time.
Recently, the acquirer base in Israel had been growing. Just this week, VMWare bought B-Hive (Undisclosed amount) and announced the opening of their Israeli R&D center. Just before that IAC announced their first Israeli acquisition, buying GirlSense (A Pitango company). For Israel this is good news. Making the 1st acquisition in a new geography is always harder than the second. We have seen many examples of companies that acquire multiple companies after they commit to operate in Israel (Intel, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, EMC).
Specifically, I am proud to see a growing number of multi-national Internet companies in Israel. When I started this blog, 3 years ago, we had only AOL. Since then, Google, Yahoo, and IAC have all opened offices here, expanding the potential exit for Israeli web companies.
However, it's not all just good news. Israeli companies are continuing to sell early. I am sure B-Hive could have continued to build something larger. Hopefully, we will continue to see great companies acquiring in Israel, but we will also see some great IPOs of long-term, sustainable businesses.
Comments