Salesforce — a global company known for its ubiquitous sales management platform — has completed its $1.9 billion acquisition of Own, an Israeli startup that develops secure data backup and management solutions.
The acquisition, paid in cash on November 18, is Israeli high tech’s largest M&A this year, and is hovering around 10th place on the list of the startup nation’s highest value acquisitions in history.
The deal is also Salesforce’s largest buy since it purchased Slack for $28 billion back in 2021, and it’s one of two Israeli acquisitions it made this year; in September, the company announced that it would acquire Zoomin, an Israeli data management software developer.
Israel wouldn’t have earned its reputation as the Startup Nation if some of the thousands of companies that have come out of this small country hadn’t earned big bucks for their investors.
How big? Jerusalem-based Mobileye holds the title for the most lucrative acquisition of an Israeli company: $15.3 billion – that’s how much Intel paid to acquire the company in 2017.
Own, founded in 2015, currently serves around 7,000 customers, and was most recently valued at $3.35 billion in August 2021. A hefty portion of that valuation was due to Salesforce already owning 10% of the company.
“Joining the Salesforce team marks a new chapter for Own, and we’re excited to continue our mission of helping customers protect, manage, and activate their SaaS data,” the company announced.
Own has offices in Tel Aviv, California, New Jersey, London, Paris and Hyderabad.
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