Base44 founder Maor Shlomo set to receive another $90 million in Wix shares after hitting milestones
Share-based compensation tied to acquisition targets underscores Base44’s central role in Wix’s expansion beyond website building.
When Wix agreed in June 2025 to acquire Base44 for $80 million, the deal stood out for its timing as much as its size. Israel was in the midst of a war with Iran. Yet even under missile fire, the country’s technology sector pressed forward. “The AI era is officially here,” the announcement declared at the time, and not even war was slowing it down.
Less than a year later, the wager appears to be paying off handsomely for Base44’s founder, Maor Shlomo.
According to Wix’s fourth-quarter 2025 financial report, Shlomo is on track to receive an additional $90 million in Wix shares if performance milestones defined in the acquisition agreement are met. The amount has already been recorded as a non-cash accounting expense, reflecting management’s assessment that Base44 will achieve one of its revenue targets.
The potential payout exceeds the headline value of the original acquisition.
The original transaction, announced in June 2025 during the previous round of fighting between Israel and Iran, valued Base44 at up to $80 million, with the final amount contingent on revenue targets through 2029. The breakdown between cash and shares was not disclosed.
Now, as Israel faces another war with Iran, Wix’s quarterly report reveals just how quickly the acquisition has evolved from a bold strategic move into a central pillar of the company’s growth story.
Base44, founded by Shlomo in 2025, enables software development without traditional programming knowledge through a prompt-based interface, sometimes referred to as “vibe coding.” The startup attracted significant attention in Israel and abroad for its intuitive AI-driven tool.
Shlomo built the company shortly after completing extended reserve duty following the October 7 attacks. Within six months of founding Base44, without raising external funding and with fewer than 10 employees, he agreed to sell the company to Wix as its sole shareholder.
Since joining Wix, Base44 has reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue in just nine months. In Wix’s fourth-quarter results, business solutions revenue, the segment that includes Base44, rose 18% year-on-year to $153.8 million, outpacing overall revenue growth of 14%.
Total quarterly revenue reached $524.3 million, while annual recurring revenue stood at $1.836 billion.
