The pool will wait: Israeli high-tech did not rest in August

While you were cooling off in the pool or waiting in the endless lines at Ben Gurion Airport, Israeli high-tech was running on turbo. With half a billion dollars in funding, one huge exit, and several under-the-radar surprises, it turns out the sleepy summer month became the most active we have seen in recent years. Here are all the numbers and deals of the month.

Israeli startups started August — a usually sleepy month — at a pretty intense pace in terms of reported funding and exits. At least until the middle of the month. In total, 12 Israeli startups reported capital raises, totaling about 580 million dollars. This is the most "fruitful" month in terms of capital raised by Israeli startups since August 2022, when they raised about a billion dollars. Note that 2021 and 2022 were an anomaly with bubble elements. Since then, we have experienced some difficult August months, including August 2024, which was the worst we have seen in the last 12 years.

New balance of power between young and mature startups

One of the most interesting stories this month is the distribution between young startups (which raised pre-seed to A rounds) and mature startups (round B and onwards). Although we consistently see that the distribution usually goes in a 2:1 ratio in favor of the young, this month the distribution was equal.

This distribution is responsible for the relatively fruitful month in terms of capital raised, with two startups (Zenity and Alice) raising more than 100 million dollars, alongside an exceptionally unusual Pre-Seed round by June.ai, founded by Efrat Rapoport, who sold a startup to Salesforce and managed its development center in Israel. To these was added an unusual Seed raise by the startup Corma, which is developing, according to its founder, the "Holy Grail" of defensive cyber — a new base model that is supposed to help defenders and not just attackers.

Let us recall that we are summarizing reported capital raises. Funds and startups have a tendency to report less in July and August due to numerous vacations, but this does not mean that other deals were not signed, which will be reported in the coming September.

Month of exits: Visa broke the mold

Alongside the impressive raises, this month we had four acquisitions of startups. The acquisition of BioCatch by Visa for 2.4 billion dollars was unusual and made the month much more interesting. Alongside it, the acquisition of At Bay brought the total exits of Israeli startups to more than 3 billion dollars this month. We also saw two more modest deals, including the acquisition of the startup Clarity by the Israeli-American HRTech giant Deel for 50 million dollars and the acquisition of Received.ai by Stigg.

August 2026 raises

• Executives at Palantir and ElevenLabs invest in an Israeli startup revealed today

• The entrepreneur who sold a company to Salesforce raised 20 million dollars from Marc Benioff and Michael Dell

• The startup that found severe vulnerabilities in ChatGPT raises 125 million dollars

• After finding vulnerabilities at Apple and Meta, they are raising another 60 million dollars

• The startup that puts AI into your next flight just raised 50 million dollars

• A CEO who is also the only employee: the startup that wants to take down old SaaS companies raised 6 million dollars

• "The Holy Grail of the field": Google and 8200 alumni reveal themselves with an unusual Seed raise

• 36 million dollars for the Israeli startup that connects drugs to code

• What makes Samsung invest in a new Israeli startup of Amazon alumni?

• The Israeli startup that protects Anthropic and NVIDIA raised 140 million dollars

• The startup QuantHealth raised 45 million dollars in a B round

• Attestable raised 20 million dollars for AI system security (Seed)

August 2026 exits

• Deel acquires for 50 million dollars an Israeli startup that fights deepfakes

• Giant deal in high-tech: Visa acquires an Israeli startup for 2.4 billion dollars in cash

• Official: the startup At Bay was sold for 575 million dollars

• Blue-and-white exit: Stigg acquires Received.ai