CTech Data
From six-person startups to a $6.3 billion take-private: October's extraordinary month for Israeli tech exits
October had nine deals, about the year’s average, but roughly $8.9 billion in stated or estimated value, nearly double the next-largest month.
In 11 days in October, buyers agreed to pay $8.6 billion for two Israeli-founded companies. One is a Nasdaq-listed data-security firm with about 1,000 employees in Israel. The other is a quantum software startup founded about six years ago.
On October 15, Proofpoint agreed to acquire Varonis for $6.3 billion in cash. On Oct. 26, Intel agreed to buy Classiq for $2.3 billion in cash and stock. Between the two, a six-person startup with no outside funding sold for up to $35 million, and another six-person company with a $6 million seed round sold at a price estimated at up to $100 million.
October was not unusually crowded. Counting the deals on CTech Data's 2026 list, there were nine in October, close to the 8.7-a-month average across the first ten months (87 deals). May had 13, July 11, and January, February and September 10 each.
By value, October stands apart. The seven October deals with a stated or estimated price add up to roughly $8.9 billion, of which Varonis and Classiq account for $8.6 billion. June, the next-largest month on the same basis, comes to about $4.8 billion, led by Nuvei's $2.75 billion purchase of Payoneer and Motorola Solutions' $1.5 billion purchase of D-Fend.
Varonis is the largest deal on the list, at more than twice the next, Payoneer. Classiq ranks fourth by stated price, behind Visa's $2.4 billion purchase of BioCatch in August. Eight of the nine October deals came between Oct. 12 and Oct. 26.
The two giants
Varonis is not a startup. It was founded in 2004, has about 2,800 employees, and about 1,000 of them work in Israel. Proofpoint, which is owned by the private-equity firm Thoma Bravo, is paying $49.75 a share, a 52% premium to the June 22 close of $32.71, the last trading day before sale rumors began. That is 17% above the Sept. 1 close of $42.35. The price is about 8.4 times revenue and 53 times free cash flow. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.
Classiq's sale is the largest acquisition of a quantum computing company to date. Its roughly 150 employees own about 10% of the company, and each of its three founders is expected to receive $80 million to $100 million. Its annual revenue is below $100 million. Intel's CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, told investors on Thursday that "post-acquisition, Intel will become a full-stack revenue-generating quantum computing company." Classiq's CEO, Nir Minerbi, told CTech that "both sides have something to prove, although the burden of proof lies more heavily on us."
Intel is both a buyer and a seller on this list. On Sept. 22, Cognex agreed to pay $600 million for RealSense, the robotics-vision company Intel spun out 14 months earlier.
Three October deals were for companies with 17 employees or fewer. Rocket Software bought Geniez AI, a six-person company which uses AI agents to manage mainframe systems, for up to an estimated $100 million. Geniez had raised a $6 million seed round about a year earlier. Its founders, Gil Peleg and Dan Shprung, had earlier sold the mainframe startup Model9 to BMC Software.
Nebius bought 10-month-old company Inferize, which has 17 employees and reduces idle GPU capacity, for an estimated $100 million to $150 million. Its founders were on the founding team of Granulate, which Intel acquired in 2022. "Keeping spare GPUs running is the price of being ready for demand," said Guy Bortnikov, its CEO.
Hex-Rays, the Belgian maker of the reverse-engineering tool IDA Pro, agreed to pay $30 million to $35 million for HexAI (formerly Ventris), a six-person startup built by Elon Gliksberg, 25, without outside capital.
Salesforce also bought the Tel Aviv analytics startup Loops, in a deal estimated at about $30 million, and will fold it into Tableau.
Eight of the nine October deals were pitched around AI. Varonis protects the data AI agents use. Boomi, in its third Israeli acquisition after Rivery and Lunar.dev, paid $43 million for Elementary Data, whose tools monitor the quality of information used by AI agents. Freshworks agreed to buy Torii, which tracks AI use down to the token.
Unconventional AI, which was valued at $4.5 billion two months after its founding, agreed to buy the Israeli chipmaker NeuReality. "The hardest thing in this industry is assembling a team that can build real silicon and the systems around it," said Naveen Rao, Unconventional's CEO. NeuReality, which raised about $105 million, is expected to return more than the capital invested, CTech reported, unlike the recent Israeli chip exits Pliops and Hailo.
