IBM acquires Israeli start-up Databand for tens of millions of dollars - 5th acquisition in 2022

Along with the crisis in high-tech - there is also an exit: in the days when many Israeli high-tech companies are making layoffs and experiencing declines in stock prices and market value, Databand.ai, also Israeli, is being acquired, the acquiring company, IBM, announced today (Wednesday). The companies did not give the amount of the deal, but according to market estimates it is tens of millions of dollars.
Databand.ai offers a real-time data monitoring solution that helps organizations fix problems with their data - including errors and failures in data flow, and its poor quality - before a question will affect business results. The system joins IBM's software solutions portfolio in the areas of data, artificial intelligence and automation, and enables it to address the full range of data monitoring spectrum.
This is IBM's fifth acquisition of the year. The blue giant has bought more than 25 companies since Arwind Krishna became CEO in April 2020. Following the acquisition, Databand.ai employees, who are located in offices in Tel Aviv, will join IBM's data and artificial intelligence division employees.
Technology giant IBM (IBM) announced on Wednesday that it has acquired the Israeli start-up Databand.ai, which operates in the field of real-time data observability (Data Observability). The purchase was completed last week and its details have not been disclosed. DataBand employs 40 people, who will join IBM's data and artificial intelligence division.
DataBand has developed software that helps organizations fix problems with their data, including errors, data flow failures, and poor data quality, before questions can affect business results. Among Databand's customers are the Association and Trax Retail companies. The company was founded in 2018 by Josh Ben Amram (CEO), Victor Shafran and Yevgeny Shulman - and has since raised $ 14.5 million from investors such as Axel, Bessemer, Lerer-Hippo and Blemberg Capital.
For Databand.ai, the acquisition will provide it with important resources for expanding its capabilities through broader integrations, for example - also on open source solutions and other commercial solutions that currently drive the modern data divisions in organizations. Organizations will be able to run the solutions of the purchasers - whether in the form of software as a service (SaaS) or as a subscription to the software in self-hosting.
"Most companies today run a petabyte of data, and errors or glitches can become costly. Providing accurate and error-free data is a critical issue that allows companies to grow," said Shai Banai, the new CEO of IBM Israel. We will expand our data solutions portfolio so that we can provide a comprehensive solution for data monitoring across the entire breadth of IT activities for our customers, who are in the midst of their digital transformation journey. "
"You can't protect what you can't see, and when the data platform is ineffective, everyone is affected - including customers," said Josh Ben-Amram, co-founder and CEO of Databand.ai. "That's why global brands rely on us to remove surprises. And data glitches by locating and resolving them before they create costly business impacts. Joining IBM will help us increase our software and significantly accelerate our ability to address the evolving needs of enterprise customers. "
According to the Gartner Research Institute, organizations invest an average of $ 13 million annually in what is known as Data Downtime - periods of time in which information is missing, distorted or incorrect. "Databand's data monitoring solutions extract statistical insights about workloads and data flow in the organization already in the original. This makes it possible to determine whether the data processes are working, and to locate where any problems may arise. Combining data monitoring capabilities "Allows to flood - and quickly solve - problems in infrastructure or applications, as well as in machine learning systems," the statement said.
IBM employs about 2,000 people in Israel in several centers of activity. The company's headquarters and the marketing and sales division are located in Kiryat Arieh in Petah Tikva, the development centers are located in Haifa, Givatayim and Tel Aviv - where the employees of the companies it acquired, Radium and Trustee, are located. Research laboratories are managed as an independent unit in Haifa, and have a branch in Givatayim and a center for cyber excellence at Ben-Gurion University in Beer Sheva.