In the first half of 2017, Israeli high-tech exits totaled $1.95 billion in 57 deals, according to an IVC-Meitar Exits Report published earlier this week. Exits in H1/2017 comprised 46 merger & acquisition (M&A) deals, seven initial public offerings (IPOs) and four buyouts, totaling $1.51 billion, $227 million, and $218 million, respectively, according to the report.
The IVC-Meitar report excludes the highly publicized Mobileye acquisition by Intel for over $15 billion, since the deal has not yet been finalized.
The average exit deal in the first half of 2017 reached $34 million, much lower than the annual exit average of $87 million in 2016.
“I believe that the first half-year has not seen enough company acquisitions, and among the ones that were acquired, we did not see enough medium to large deals, of the type the venture capital industry is after. We hope that the industry will regain a healthier balance in the second half of 2017,” said Koby Simana, CEO of IVC Research Center.
The largest deals in the first half of 2017 were the $340 million acquisition of Valtech by Edwards Lifescience and $200 million acquistion of Juno LAB by Gett, followed by the $170 million acquisition of Servotronix by Midea.
Israeli companies hit the headlines with two-sided Israeli M&A deals in the first half of the year. According to IVC, the most prominent Israeli through and through deal was with Gett acquiring Juno LAB for $200 million (the second largest deal closed in 2017 so far). In fact, 15 such deals were recorded since the beginning of the year, garnering $256 million.
In 2016, there were 34 deals involving Israeli companies on the both sides.