A wave of IPOs is creating new Israeli tech tycoons

The growing wave of IPOs of Israeli technology companies on Wall Street has generated billions of dollars “on paper” for a group of entrepreneurs in these companies, as well as for individual investors who believed in these companies in their early stages. Globes found that following the initial public offerings (IPOs) of six Israeli technology companies on Wall Street in 2020 and 2021, 15 entrepreneurs and individual investors from Israel own shares worth a combined $5 billion, and the list is expected to grow only in the coming months. . Since the beginning of 2021, four Israeli tech companies have held initial public offerings on Wall Street, while others have submitted prospectuses ahead of future IPOs – all companies worth billions of dollars. The most recent of these was last week when operating system company monday.com (Nasdaq: MNDY) raised $574 million, which is likely to grow by an additional $57.4 million, if underwriters exercise their options within 30 days at the IPO price. . The monday.com IPO was completed at a valuation of the company at $6.8 billion, and the stock price subsequently rose 22%, giving a market capitalization of $8.3 billion. The company’s founders and co-CEOs have a lot to smile about – Roy Mann’s stock is now worth $1.1 billion, and Iran Zinman’s is $436 million. One of Monday.com’s early investors was Wix.com Ltd (Nasdaq: WIX) CEO Avishai Abrahami. He invested privately in 2012 and now finds himself with $294 million worth of stock. Abrahamy continues to own $492 million in Wix stock. Another private investor in monday.com is Entrée Capital co-founder and managing partner Aviad Eyal who owns $140 million in stock, while Entrée Capital itself owns $910 million in stock. As far as is known, Entrée Capital and Eyal together invested only $13 million in monday.com, and have generated amazing returns on their investment. Three founders of Global-E’s $900 million monday.com hit Wall Street a month after international e-commerce platform Global-E (Nasdaq: GLBE) and web behavior and traffic analytics firm, (NYSE: SMWB) arrived. Over the past month, Global-E’s stock price has jumped 86%, and its three founders, Amir Shalachit, COO Chahar Tamari, and CRO Near Deby each own shares worth about $300 million. Related Articles monday.com Completes Nasdaq IPO At $6.8 Billion WalkMe Plans to Go IPO on Nasdaq At $2.5 Billion Israeli gaming company Playtika owns Nasdaq IPO at $11 billion for cybersecurity. SentinelOne files for the NYSE IPO LikeWeb’s stock price has fallen slightly since the IPO and the company is “only” worth $1.6 billion, but CEO and founder Or Ofer still owns $124 million in shares, having sold $11 million in shares. Serial entrepreneur Yossi Vardi, who invested in SameWeb’s initial funding round in 2007 and increased his stake in subsequent funding rounds, owns $84.5 million in stock in the company. The largest-ever IPO of an Israeli company occurred in January 2021 when gaming company Playtika (NASDAQ:PLTK) held its IPO. Playtika is controlled by a Chinese company, which it bought in 2016 from an American company, which in turn bought it from founder and CEO Robert Antokol in 2010. Playtika went public for $11.1 billion and today is just under $10.6. One billion. Antokol currently has shares worth $258 million. Lemonade’s founders own $650 million in stock. Last year, there were only two major initial public offerings (IPOs) of Israeli tech companies – digital insurer Lemonade (NYSE: LMND in July 2020 at $29 per share) and auto-update company JFrog Nasdaq: FROG) in September 2020 $44 per share. Lemonade’s share price rose to $183 at its peak, but has since fallen to $106, giving it a market capitalization of $6.5 billion. Cofounders CEO Daniel Schreiber and CTO Shay Weininger each hold shares of $287 million and $359 million, respectively. Schreiber sold shares for $49.5 million several months ago, as part of a secondary offering at $165 per share. Wininger, who was also a co-founder of freelance platform Fiverr (NYSE: FVRR), which held its initial public offering in 2019, currently owns $346 million in Fiverr stock, although he is no longer an interested party in that company. JFrog’s share price is currently $47.3, which is slightly above its IPO price, giving it a market capitalization of $4.4 billion. The company’s three founders have sold $63 million worth of shares, JFrog CEO Shlomi Ben Haim still has $242 million in stock, Chief Data Scientist Fred Simon has $266 million in stock, and CTO Yoav Landman has $345 million in stock. Israeli tech companies are expected to conduct initial public offerings on Wall Street in the coming months, having submitted prospectus prospects to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, including cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, which has not yet announced an expected valuation, but it may be one. One of the largest IPOs in Israel with founder and CEO Tomer Weingarten owning a 4% stake. SaaS Builds Digital Adoption WalkMe plans an initial public offering of $2.5 billion, giving CEO co-founders Dan Adeka and President Raphael Soiree stakes worth more than $60 million each. $40 billion SPAC mergers await Alongside these IPOs, a long list of Israeli tech companies totaling $40 billion have agreed to go public on Wall Street through a merger with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) , a blank check company, which raises funds and then searches for a promising tech company to merge with. Among the SPAC mergers due to complete in the next few weeks: app monetization company ironSource, worth $11.1 billion, and content recommender Taboola, valuing $2.6 billion. IronSource founder and CEO Tomer Ben-Zeev has between 5.7% and 7.3%, The other two founders, Tamer Karmi and Arnon Harish, own 2.1%-2.7%. Adam Singulda, founder and CEO of Taboola, holds a stake between 6% and 6.6%. Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – June 14, 2021 © Copyright Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2021