Israel is emerging as an increasingly vibrant hot bed of technology investment and M&A activity for savvy deal makers.
If the current pace holds—40 Israeli companies have been acquired this year—this will be the highest rate of M&A activity since 1994. Since January 2011, acquirers have spent an aggregate $19.4 billion to acquire 107 Israeli companies. Fifty-five of these companies were venture backed and accounted for $12.8 billion in aggregate purchase price. Interestingly, 21 of these companies were acquired by Apple, Cisco, EMC/VMware, Facebook, GE, Google, IBM, Intel / McAfee and Salesforce.com. The future looks robust as well, as venture investment in Israeli companies in the first six months of 2013 alone totaled nearly $1.0 billion.
With a current population of less than eight million people (fewer than, for example, New Jersey, North Carolina or Virginia), you might wonder how Israel generates such a track record. The fact is that there are attractive acquisition targets all over the planet. EMC and others are increasingly setting their sights on Israel because the companies we find and the macro environment in which they operate can enable growth and success at global scale.
Matt’s article continues on Quartz.
