![]() Internet adoption and mobile-adoption is a global phenomenon – and if successful web services have appeal in multiple geographies to a growing list of potential acquirers with money to spend and an increasingly sophisticated understanding of how tech acquisitions can shape their strategy. With Viber’s acquisition by Rakuten, this taken on new significance. Israeli VCs have been talking about the “opportunity in Asia” for a while now. All of us (CEOs, product people, marketers, investors, LPs) must think in a global way in order to really capture the best opportunities and drive them to the biggest possible success. Digital businesses are global by definition. ![]() Is Viber Israeli? American? Cypriot? The answer is who cares. The tech team is multi-national and based largely in Tel Aviv, with a development center in Belarus. What’s an Israeli company? Viber’s CEO lives in NY.Yes, billion-dollar exist are rare – but they do happen – and they are happening in Israel at a fantastic pace that should encourage even the biggest skeptic to look again at investing in Israeli tech. Israel has seen the exits of Wix, Waze, Trusteer, Intucell, PrimeSense, and several others in the 300M+ club. The past two years, however, has seen Israel riding the same wave of M&A and IPOs that have driven venture returns to solid levels around the world. And every time there was an early exit, as a community we would all wring our hands and hold our heads down in shame and bemoan the lost opportunity to build an Israeli Nokia or an Israeli Facebook. This was a hot topic for many years, and as a VC based in Israel, we spent a lot of time trying to convince LPs that founders wouldn’t sell out early and convincing founders not to sell out early. We can officially declare the age of “wondering about whether or not Israel will produce big exits” to be over. ![]() I wanted to call attention to a few things, sparked by the Viber story. Now, almost two decades later, Israeli companies are still innovating, still driving immense value for consumers worldwide – and doing it at the billion-dollar level. It was the spark that lit the fire of consumer tech innovation in Israel. ICQ was the first major Israeli consumer-oriented internet exit. ![]() Here are links to stories by Techcrunch, Re/Code, GigaOm – and there will be lots more I’m sure.Īs an interesting historical footnote, Viber’s exit is roughly twice the size of ICQ’s exit to AOL in 1998. It’s a pretty amazing story, and a lot of it has been covered well by the tech press. Viber, a free VOIP-based calling app for smartphones. Today brought the announcment of another near-billion Israeli exit. Thoughts on Viber’s $900M exit to Rakuten ![]()
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