In the past six months alone, Israeli publicly traded tech companies have reported acquisitions amounting to more than $4 billion. Today Israeli media content recommendation company Outbrain (Nasdaq: OB) joined the trend when it announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Swiss-based contextual video technology platform for digital and connected TV media owners video intelligence AG (vi) in a $55 million cash and share deal.
If in the past Israelis companies tended to be acquired, in recent months they have been feverishly buying out companies from both Israel and around the world. For example cybersecurity company Kape Technologies (LSE: KAPE) recently agreed to acquire US VPN provider ExpressVPN for $936 million, although the deal has not yet been completed.
But most of the acquisitions have been by companies that have held IPOs and SPAC mergers over the past year, spending the money raised from the public or through the SPAC mergers and accompanying PIPE investment. One of the motivations is that the Israeli newly listed Wall Street companies have grand ambitions to become the leaders in their tech sectors.
Outbrain's content recommendation rival Taboola (Nasdaq: TBLA) bought US ad solutions company Connexity for $800 million in July, shortly after completing its SPAC merger in June and starting to trade on Wall Street.
Two weeks ago insurtech company Lemonade (NYSE: LMND) acquired US Ai car insurance company Metromile for $500 million, while app monetization company ironSource (NYSE: IS) US mobile ad company Tapjoy for $400 million last month. In September, gaming company Playtika (Nasdaq: PLTK) bought Finnish mobile apps developer Reworks for up to $600 million and software company JFrog (Nasdaq: FROG) acquired Israeli software company Vdoo for $300 million and auto-tech company Otonomo (Nasdaq: OTMO) bought Israeli intelligence insights company Neura for $50 million.
Among veteran Israeli tech companies traded on Wall Street, metrology company Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd. (Nasdaq:NVMI; TASE:NVMI) last week signed an agreement to acquire German chemical analysis and metrology solution company ancosys for $100 million and communication software company AudioCodes (Nasdaq: AUDC) bought US conversational AI solutions company CallVerso.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on November 23, 2021.
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