Assaf Rappaport in talks to acquire McDonald's franchise in Israel

Assaf Rappaport. Photo: Omer HaCohen

After startups and media companies, is the next target for Israeli tech billionaire Assaf Rappaport burgers? It seems that the founder of Wiz is now considering a particularly surprising acquisition — and not in the world of technology. According to a report in mako, the Israeli entrepreneur is examining the purchase of the McDonald's franchise in Israel from the global McDonald's corporation.

The fast-food chain operates more than 200 branches across the country and has been active in Israel for over 30 years. For the past two years, the chain has been in a state of limbo after the global McDonald's bought back the franchise in 2024 from Omri Padan, who had operated it for decades. The move came about six months after the outbreak of the "Iron Swords" war, following the former franchisee's decision to provide free meals and discounts to IDF soldiers during the first days of the fighting. This decision caused a wave of boycotts against the chain in Europe and Arab countries, led to a double-digit percentage drop in sales in certain regions, and created heavy pressure from investors — until the global chain demanded to find a new and neutral franchisee.

Not just cyber and media

Recall that last month, Rappaport acquired control of the social media powerhouse "Israel Bidur" for tens of millions of shekels, and is now waiting for official approval of the purchase of "Reshet 13" by the Merit philanthropic fund, which he established together with his partners at Wiz. Recently, it was reported that several investors from the Israeli high-tech industry, including entrepreneurs from Monday and Riskified, decided to forgo participation in the purchase of "Reshet 13", and the money for the deal will come solely from the pockets of Rappaport and his co-founder at Wiz and Adallom — Yinon Costica. According to reports, as part of the deal, the entrepreneurs committed to injecting about 120 million dollars into the media outlet over the next three years. In addition to these acquisitions, Rappaport is also in negotiations to purchase holdings in the private medical center "Herzliya Medical".

From Anthropic to Cursor

Alongside these acquisitions, Rappaport has spent years building an impressive investment portfolio. He has nearly 40 active investments in startups in Israel and abroad and has already recorded 11 exits, the largest of which was the acquisition of Cursor developer — Anysphere — by Elon Musk's SpaceX for 60 billion dollars. He also managed to invest in Armis, founded by his former employees Yevgeny Dibrov and Nadir Izrael, which was sold for 7.75 billion dollars, and in Talon, which was sold for 625 million dollars to Palo Alto.

Among his active investments are a series of particularly interesting companies, including Anthropic, which is on its way to one of the largest IPOs in history; Descartes by Dean Leitersdorf; Dream by NSO founder Shalev Hulio; the cyber company Torq and the cloud company PointFive.