The roller coaster continues: Israeli startups raised $1.4 billion in June

The Israeli high-tech roller coaster continues: along with the headlines about the market crisis, layoffs and declining investment in Israeli high-tech, the month of June ended with an impressive amount of reported recruitments – although we are still far from reaching the peak heights of 2021.

The rounds that leave the ecosystem in good shape

This month, 30 Israeli startups reported raising capital which totalled $1.37 billion. This is a sharp drop from the previous month, as 41 startups raised $2.2 billion.

It is also important to note that the vast majority of the capital reported by Israeli startups this month came from only five rounds of fundraising – four of them with "mega-fundraisers" of $100 million or more, and one of $90 million. These five startups raised $1.08 billion - with the other 25 responsible for just under $300 million.

The company that reported the largest fundraiser this month was Ultima Genomics, which raised $600 million to develop a system that will allow genomic flooring at a tenth of the price and in a significantly shorter time than currently available. Perimeter81, AIdoc and Vayyar, each raised about $100 million. Parameter 81 and Vayyar both renewed their unicorn title with a valuation of $1 billion or more. The Israeli HR-Tech company Gloat also had a significant fundraising round this month with $90 million for its in-house employee placement platform.

A similar trend happened in April when 5 companies were the ones who raised the majority of the total capital of all startups. But we also saw 25 reported investments in startups in the early stages– which led to a pretty significant ratio of 1:5. We will monitor to see if this ratio changes in the coming months.

Compared to the months of June in previous years, this year's fundraising is nowhere near its past. In June 2021, 46 Israeli startups – 7 of which became unicorns – raised a total of $ 2.4 billion, almost double what was raised this June. In June 2020, right after COVID-19’s first quarantine, only about half a billion dollars were raised. In June 2019, too, Israeli startups raised a similar amount. So it is hard to tell if the crisis has yet to reflect the market or if Israeli high-tech is simply benign to what is happening all over the world? Hopefully, we will get some answers, in the coming months. Until then, we wail.