A new report by PwC reveals a 340% rise in exits by Israeli tech companies this year. The report also shows a major increase in the number of companies being sold for low amounts, apparently after many companies raised a lot of capital in 2021 but did not prove they could grow are being sold in a hurry.
According to the report, the number of exits between January and November 2025 jumped 60% compared with the corresponding period last year, but about 50% of the deals did not exceed $50 million. Many of these were sales at a low yield or even sales at a loss - that is, for an amount lower than the amount invested in the company by venture capitalists. In many cases, these were shares of the buyers - mostly private companies.
The exits of Wiz and CyberArk, although not yet finally approved by regulators, along with the IPOs of Via Navan. and eToro. have boosted the value of Israeli deals by 340% to $58.8 billion. Excluding the $32 billion Wiz-Google deal, the value of deals and offerings has doubled this year, but the size of the average acquisition deal has fallen by 40% from $268 million in 2024 to just $160 million this year - further evidence that tech investors preferred to sell assets this year, even if at a lower yield.
Aggressive offers for early stage companies
PwC Israel hi-tech partner and territory assurance leader Yaron Weizenbluth points to another reason for the increase in small exits: "Among the reasons for this is an increase in the acquisition of young companies that have a significant affinity for AI that were acquired within three years of their founding" - that is, the pressure from large companies to recruit AI people and products in the field has led them to make aggressive offers to young companies. Among these companies are Apax, which was sold to Tenable for about $100 million, and Aim Security, which was sold to Cato for about $350 million. This is a nice return on investment in these companies, but also a quick sale within a few years of their founding, and it is possible that they could have become even larger companies.
This year, 13 follow-on deals were completed with a total value of approximately $31 billion, an increase of 713%, compared with seven deals totaling only $3.8 billion in 2024. Among the deals, Palo Alto's acquisition of CyberArk, which has not yet been completed, Advent's acquisition of Sapiens for $2.5 billion, and Thoma Bravo's acquisition of Verint for $2 billion.
The aggregate value of all deals this year - new and follow-on - is estimated at $89.8 billion, compared with $17.2 billion last year, the second largest amount ever in Israel, second only to the total value in 2021, which was more than $100 billion.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 15, 2025.
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