The Capital Quest | Israel’s DriveNets, Guesty, HiBob, 4 others raise nearly $750 mn

As many as seven Israeli startups have raised almost $750 million in total over the past couple of days, in a sign that funding activity remains robust in the tiny West Asian nation despite layoffs across dozens of startups over the past few months.

The biggest funding cheque was snagged by DriveNets, which secured $262 million in Series C funding. The round valued the startup at more than $2.5 billion.

This was followed by Guesty’s $170 million Series E funding round and a $150 million Series C round raised by HiBob, which valued it at $2.45 billion.

Other startups that secured big funding cheques include Pliops, which snagged $100 million in a Series D funding round; GrowthSpace, which got $25 million; and Agora, a real estate management company that found itself richer by $20 million. Biotech firm Groundwork BioAg completed a $18 million Series B funding round over the past week.

DriveNets

DriveNets’ mammoth funding round was led by D2 Investments with the participation of current investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Pitango, D1 Capital, Atreides Management, and Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services.

The startup was founded in 2015 by Ido Susan and Hillel Kobrinsky. It offers communications service providers (CSPs) and cloud providers a new way to build networks, substantially growing their profitability by changing their technological and economic models.

Before DriveNets, Susan had founded Intucell, which was acquired by Cisco in 2013 for $475 million and has since been sold further on. Kobrinsky had earlier founded Interwise, which specialized in online conference calls and was sold to AT&T for $121 million.

Guesty

Property management platform Guesty was funded in its latest round by Apax Digital Funds, MSD Partners, and Sixth Street Growth. The startup’s current investors, Viola Growth and Flashpoint, also pitched in.

While Guesty did not reveal the valuation at which it raised its Series E money, its executives said it is close to becoming a unicorn, that is, being valued at $1 billion.

Guesty was founded in 2013 by brothers Amiad and Koby Soto.

HiBob

Talent acquisition firm HiBob’s Series C round was led by General Atlantic with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and other investors.

The company says its platform is used by more than 2,500 multinational companies including Cazoo, Gong, Hopin, Monzo, Happy Socks, Fiverr, and VaynerMedia.

HiBob has doubled in size with over 370 new hires since Q4 2021, taking its total headcount to 650. HiBob has also expanded its New York and London office locations, in addition to opening an office in Berlin, Germany

The company, which claims to have clients in 166 countries, says it will use the new funding to add additional offices across regions, in the next two years.

Pliops

Tech startup Pliops has reportedly raised $100 million from Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT).

SK Hynix, Walden International Chairman Lip-Bu Tan, and State of Mind Ventures Momentum, in addition to previous investors, also participated in the round.

Pliops’ technology is focused on making data centres run faster and more efficiently.

The company has raised $200 million till date from various investors including KDT, State of Mind Ventures Momentum, Intel Capital, Viola Ventures, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Expon Capital, NVIDIA, AMD, Western Digital, SK Hynix and Alicorn.

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