For twenty years, "Globes" has been presenting its annual list of the most promising Israeli startups, the ones emerging as the next generation of leading companies. The list is based on the selections of over 100 local and foreign funds that invest in Israeli technology companies, but takes into account editorial concerns such as balance between different fields and exceptional rates of growth.
The funds were asked to nominate young, groundbreaking Israeli companies with substantial investment rounds behind them, in the tens of millions of dollars, exhibiting healthy growth, making a significant impact, and on a sure path to an acquisition or IPO.
In order to neutralize bias towards companies in which the funds are invested, each firm was asked to nominate four companies outside its own portfolio, and only one within it. The companies could be from any field, including life sciences and defense tech.
The aim of the ranking is not to point over and over again at the mature privately-held technology companies in high demand on the part of technology investors, but, each year, to mark out the next generation of startup companies that are worthwhile following. We strove to avoid companies ranked in previous "Globes" lists, and large unicorns, but companies that became unicorns in the course of the ranking process - that is, their valuations rose to over $1 billion - were not excluded on that account.
Among the 103 venture capital firms that assisted in compiling the list are Israeli firms such as Viola Ventures, Pitango, Cyberstarts, Entrée Capital, F2 Venture Capital, Vertex Ventures, and Qumra Capital, while the foreign firms include Bessemer Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Insight Partners, and Dell Technologies Capital.
Challenging Nvidia
The list is headed by two companies trying to challenge the modern computing market that is currently led by Nvidia and its graphics processors, the engine of the artificial intelligence revolution. The first, Majestic Labs, is attempting to do so by fundamentally changing the structure of the AI server and equipping it with more memory components and a chip that allows greater flexibility for customization. The company believes that it can thereby make AI processing fifty times cheaper than with Nvidia processors.
The second company, Quantum Art, is harnessing quantum mechanics and the physical properties of ions to launch a quantum computer, next year or the year after, that will be far more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer that exists today.
Two other companies that made this year’s rankings are at the heart of the AI agents revolution, software that can carry out tasks such as customer service, writing code, and compiling a research study: Port, a place where all an organization’s AI agents meet, and Wonderful, one of the fastest growing AI agent creators, which recently achieved a valuation of $2 billion.
Real world solutions
Other companies, such as Converge Bio, a developer of its own language models for drug discovery, and Qodo, a system for monitoring autonomously generated software code, have achieved exceptional growth by being at the forefront of adoption of AI technologies. Finally in this category there are Kela Technologies and NoTraffic, which are bringing AI to real world situations. The investors have chosen two companies that combine hardware and software to solve concrete problems, whether it is repulsing the threat of fiber-optic drones or freeing-up traffic jams in city centers.
From Mellanox to DriveNets
Among outstanding companies that made previous "most promising" lists are Armis and Melio, both sold in the past year for billions of dollars. Armis was sold to ServiceNow for $7.5 billion, while Melio was sold for over $2.5 billion to New Zealand-based Xero. Earlier this month, DriveNets, which topped the list in 2019, became the second most highly valued privately-held Israeli company when it held an investment round led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Atreides at a valuation of $8.5 billion.
The company ranked first in the "Globes" list twenty years ago was Mellanox, which was acquired by Nvidia for $6.9 billion and is now an integral part of that company and of the global AI revolution. Mellanox’s network chips, incorporated with Nvidia’s graphics processors in the server farms of the technology giants, have reached an annual revenue rate of $40 billion, making Mellanox - thanks to the acquisition- the Israeli company with the highest revenue ever.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 17, 2026.
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