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Insight Partners: $6b and still investing in Israel

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Investor Empires

Insight Partners, one of the most famous private stock companies known in the American technology industry, has set a new partner for their investments in Israel. Experienced investment manager Daniel Araunovitz was appointed as a partner and a Sider Investments in Israel alongside Lyad Ojun, former CEO of dynamics, who joined three years before the position of managing director, founder of Insight Partners and Administrative Director Jeff Horn.

When Araunovitz immigrated to Israel five years ago, leaving behind his comfortable life in Long Island, he was a relatively young investment manager who came to open the insight partners office in Israel. Nothing Araunovitz did even then – a standard childhood in Long Island, New York University business studies, summer training in financial giants in Manhattan and his first job as an analyst in insight, which I prepared for what will happen for only one year after reaching Israel.

The fund, run by Horing, has become the most active investor in the technology sector in Israel for several years, as it has boarded the wave of huge investments in the bone years and low interest rates. After years of investing from AFAR, Insight has become a special stock fund that turned into an investment capital fund and has become a well -full investment machine.

One of the most prominent investment funds in Israel

Horing, who has been invested in Israel since 2000, has had successes like Wix, Monday.com, Sentinelone, JFROG and Walkme. He would have often come to Israel, bought an apartment in Harslia, and Araonovitz was the one who helped locate and search for companies and helped in deals. In 2021 and 2022, insight and another box called Tiger Global, who has since disappeared from the Israeli scene, was the most active investor in the country.

During this time insight achieved some successes. It is one of the largest contributors to Wiz, and has great investment in Island and SEMPRIS, and has led investments in companies that brought out fast profits and profits, including granolite, which was sold to Intel for $ 650 million; Own, which was sold to Salesforce for two billion dollars; Deci and Run: AI, which was sold to NVIDIA for about one billion dollars.

The box was also some setbacks. He neglected the due care before investing in JONKO, which turned out to be a fraud, with the OpenWeb founder, and invested in the OVO grocery company, which promised and operated rapid delivery operations with huge losses. In total, Insight has invested in 125 Israeli companies, of which 100 are still active. Two years later, as the most active box in Israel, Insight took out its feet of gas and lost its position as an active investor in Israel. A survey conducted by IVC, KPMG and Gornitzky found that insight was only classified as the fourth most active foreign investor in Israel in 2023, and although last year's official ranking has not yet been published, the number of investments for the first time is not. The previous year does not exceed (five new investments per year).







After completing the investments, the interest rates and the crisis that followed that started in March 2022 left an insight with investments in Wahidat, which used to raise capital several times a year, with no imminent financing horizon and an enlarged evaluation. When Liad Agmon was appointed as an administrative director of the fund in 2022, he likened himself to someone who enters a “chaotic room after the party ended”, which was distinguished by the technology industry in Israel at the time.

F in a huge exit maker with NVIDIA

In an interview with Globes, Aronovitz, the first Insight representative in Israel, remembers, “During the most difficult times, we took a step back, because this was a global trend. We focused on helping the current corporate portfolio and support their needs. We continued to invest in current companies, and in the past two years. We poured hundreds of millions of dollars in Israel.

With the term “strategic exits”, Araunovitz may refer to the role played by insight in NVIDIA's acquisition of three companies last year, two of which are Israeli. AINOVITz worked as part of the Israeli Run Startup investment team: AI, who has developed an operating system for graphics processors and was sold with DECI for $ 1.1 billion for the giant chips. “Globes” realizes that senior executives of Insight investment teams and their companies met the NVIDIA directors, which led to the acquisition.

Another director in which Arenovitz participated is the previous one (OWN Backup), which was sold to Salesforce for $ 1.9 billion.

“We poured hundreds of millions of dollars in Israel.”

What are the mistakes that you made and what lessons did you learn?

“We, as a box, look more cash at the investment entry price. We ask ourselves about the size of this company and what is the price in the end when it is sold,” Aranovitz replies. “In some cases, the reason for the decrease in investments was to allow the market to pass a kind of restart. But even if you look at our activity in the past two years, we are still setting up hundreds of millions of dollars in Israel.

“In 2024 alone, we invested in the total in more than 25 Israeli companies. Of course, this also includes our conservative companies, but a large part of the thesis we encourage in Israel is to continue to participate in companies regardless of the stage in.”

For the role of Insight's stress in the story of Israeli technology, Aronovitz reveals that when he moved to the country at the end of 2019, Insight $ 700 million in local companies invested at that time. “Now, after 5 years, this amount reaches more than $ 5.8 billion.” According to the search site, the fund raised about $ 98 billion so far, and therefore its total investment in Israel amounts to more than 6 % of the total capital it raised.

Many startups do not have a strategy

The appointment of aronovitz as a second partner in the Israeli office symbolizes the growth of the fund in Israel, but perhaps necessarily preferred by Jeff Horing, until recently, a partner who will come to Israel often, to leave more activity here in other hands.

Horing sits itself on the boards of management of companies such as Wiz, Island, Armis, Bringg and OpenWeb. Despite its many investments, including in early stage companies, it is difficult not to forget that insight is originally a special stock box. In this way, Aronovitz, looking for deals for control (acquisition) in Israeli companies, noticed in cases of Armis and CheckMarx, which she obtained for $ 84 million and sold at $ 1.15 billion.

“There are many Israeli startups that want to go through a liquidity event, but they do not have a real strategy. But if a financial entity can have flexible capital such as insight and liquidity, we can provide returns to early investors and take the company to new horizons.

It was published by Globes, Israel Business News – En.globes.co.il – on February 25, 2025.

© Copy Publish Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. , 2025.


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