The acquisition of Israeli Internet of Things (IoT) security company CyberX, by Microsoft, which was announced earlier this week, is not such good news for dozens of the company's employees who are likely to be leaving, sources inform "Globes." Financial details about the deal were not disclosed but Microsoft is believed to be paying $165 million - a handsome return for a company that was founded in 2013 and has raised $48 million. The layoffs are not connected to Microsoft.
Since the deal was announced dozens of employees, mainly in sales, support and administration, have been summoned to hearings ahead of being fired. "Globes" understands that most of the hearings have already been held.
CyberX has not yet responded to questions and Microsoft declined to comment.
CyberX has 140 employees of whom near 100 are in Israel. Even among those employees who are not being let go at this stage, nearly half will only continue to be employed for somewhere between several months and a year, after they have helped transfer the company's knowhow to Microsoft's personnel. That leaves just the development staff and estimates according to people familiar with the subject, only 33% of CyberX's staff can feel safe about their jobs. Ironically in the months leading up to the deal, CyberX speeded up new hiring.
The company, which was founded in 2013 by CEO Omer Schneider and CTO Nir Giller, is engaged in industrial IoT security and industrial control systems. Protection is implemented by algorithms that perform analysis of network traffic and identify anomalies in machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. The company has major international customers in the energy, water, pharmaceutical, chemicals and manufacturing sectors.
The company's largest shareholders are NVP, Qualcomm, Glilot, Glenrock, OurCrowd, Upwest and Gigi Levi-Weiss.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 25, 2020
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