Last year, we published a research brief showing that Israel was a high-performing market for venture-backed company exits in 2013, including the exits of Wix and Intucell, both backed by US-based Bessemer Venture Partners.
As momentum increases in the “startup nation,” we used CB Insights data to analyze trends in Israel’s VC-backed exits in 2014 and 2015 year-to-date. This brief includes annual exits data, sector breakdowns, and top exits.
Annual exits
This year has already surpassed 2014 for venture-backed exits for Israel-based companies, at 23 year-to-date. Last year had already seen healthy year-over-year (YoY) growth with 69% growth in exits.
2013 exits look small when compared to 2014 and 2015, but the year did notch a high-profile exit in web development platform Wix.com, which exited at a $601M valuation in Q4’13.
Exits by sector
Israeli exits in 2015 year-to-date (YTD) have come from a variety of sectors, with mobile and telecom, internet, and healthcare being the top three sectors for exits, in that order.
- Mobile and telecommunications companies have accounted for 30% of exits YTD in Israel after making up about one-fourth of exits in the previous two years.
- There was a spike in healthcare exits in 2014, when they accounted for 36% of Israeli exits, up from 8% in 2013. In 2015 year-to-date, the sector has contributed 17% of exits.
- Software exits have slowly declined hitting a three-year low of 9% in 2014, but have bounced back a bit to 13% in 2015 YTD, as seen below.
Largest exits since 2013
Below are the 5 largest venture-backed exits of Israel-headquartered companies since 2013. Topping the list is Jerusalem-based Mobileye which develops driver-assistance technology, and counts GM, Honda, and BMW as some of its customers. Bessemer Venture Partners is an active venture capital firm in Israel, and was an investor in 2 of the top 5 exits as seen below.
Note: The list below doesn’t include exits of originally Israeli companies that relocated to the United States, including Waze (acquired by Google in June 2013 for $966M) and Trusteer, which IBM bought in August 2013 at a $900M valuation.
| Company | Valuation | Exit | Date Exited | Select Investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobileye | $ 5,308 | IPO | Q3’14 | Motorola Solutions Venture Capital and Goldman Sachs |
| Solaredge Technologies | $ 685 | IPO | Q1’15 | Genesis Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners |
| cCam Biotherapeutics | $ 605 | M&A | Q3’15 | Arkin Holdings and Pontifax |
| Wix | $ 601 | IPO | Q4’13 | Bessemer Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital |
| Intucell | $ 475 | M&A | Q1’13 | Bessemer Venture Partners |
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Feature Image credit; Amos Meron. Creative Commons.
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