Israeli high-tech is breaking records: Raised over $ 10.5 billion since the beginning of the year

The Israeli high-tech industry does not stop breaking records. According to Start Up Nation Central (SNC), a company that connects the Israeli high-tech industry to organizations and investors from around the world, start-up companies in Israel have raised over $ 10.5 billion since the beginning of the year - the amount raised in 2020 as a whole.
In the last few days alone, Gong and Verbit have announced huge fundraisers of $ 250 million and $ 157 million, respectively. The huge fundraising phenomenon of high-tech companies coming close to their other fundraisers is another feature of the past year, where many entrepreneurs reported multiple rounds of fundraising within a few months, with all coming from investors and all at significantly higher value than the previous one.
According to the data, since the beginning of 2021 there has been a record number of rounds of funding of $ 100 million and more. This year, 30 rounds of this type have been completed, compared to 21 rounds throughout 2020. These rounds represent 53% of the total capital raised, and for the first time were responsible for more than half of the total capital invested.
The increase in investment is noticeable compared to abroad
The impressive increase in capital investments in Israeli companies is even more pronounced compared to the raising performance around the world. While Israel recorded a 137% increase in the first five months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020, the global figure stood at only 89%. In Europe there was an increase of 123% in the same period while in the USA there was an increase of 91%, and in Asia an increase of 69%.
Uri Gabay, incoming CEO of the Start-Up Nation Central Research and Policy Institute, said: "We hope that the expected incoming government will formulate a budget that will focus on growth-oriented policies, overcome the chronic shortage of technological human capital and improve the economic impact of the sector on The rest of the Israeli economy. "
The significant increase in investments in the high-tech sector and technological innovation in Israel since the beginning of the year has focused on the more advanced stages, with most of the financing (64%) invested in C and higher rounds.

At the begining of the week another Israeli company is on it's way to Wall Street: Cyber ​​Sentinel One submitted a prospectus for an IPO in which it revealed its financial performance - the company grew in the first quarter by 107%, even more than last year (100%), and its annual revenue reached 161 million Dollar - a fourfold jump in two years. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post, but his latest fundraiser in October was worth $ 3 billion. It is estimated in the market that Sentinel One is worth more than ten billion dollars.

Sentinel One is developing an artificial intelligence-based platform for securing endpoints, including laptops, desktops, servers and cloud servers and other devices connected to the Internet. The company was founded in 2013 by two childhood friends, Tomer Weingarten, who serves as the company's CEO, and Almog Cohen, who no longer holds an active position in the company. Over the years, about $ 850 million has been invested in the company, most of them Shares from existing shareholders The company grew rapidly and between February 2020 and April 2021 the number of employees increased from 450 to 850.
In the last four quarters, the company's revenues totaled $ 122 million. The company's fiscal year begins in early February and lasts until the end of January, so fiscal year 2021 actually reflects the calendar year 2020. In that year, the company's revenues totaled $ 93 million, double the previous year. In the same year, the net accounting loss amounted to $ 117 million and the company "burned" about $ 73 million (negative free cash flow). In the first quarter of the current year, the company grew by 107% and its revenues reached $ 37.4 million. The net loss jumped at a higher rate than the increase in revenue and reached $ 62.6 million. The company "burned" $ 32.5 million.
The company has 4,700 customers in a variety of areas of activity. Large customers, who employ more than 1,000 workers, are responsible for two-thirds of its revenue. The company notes that it has 277 customers whose annual revenue rate reaches $ 100,000 and up, compared to 122 customers a year ago. The prospectus includes a dollar-based net retention rate that reflects the increase in revenue from existing customers. In the first quarter it stood at 124%, an increase over last year when it stood at 117%.