Three months after the ceasefire, and its business as usual in the global tourism industry. The Abu Dhabi and Dubai airports are already bustling, gearing up for tens of millions of passengers during the summer vacation. Dor Krubiner and Omry Litvak, cofounders of tech company Mize, which operates an online trading exchange for hotel rooms and flight tickets, report record bookings and operations back to normal. "The recovery was rapid, as this industry has proven time and time again," Krubiner concludes, "It's not going anywhere - people will keep on flying."
"It's nice that I can buy an apartment for my kids"
Travel tech company Mize, founded by Krubiner and Litvak (both 40), has been operating under the radar for years. The company acts as an exchange for trading hotel room inventory, marketing them to sites like Booking.com and Hotels.com, as well as to travel agencies around the world. The company’s central target is the Asian tourism market, which is unsurprising as Mize was sold quietly two years ago to SoftBank portfolio company Yanolja Group of Korea. The deal was signed without publicity for an estimated $250-300 million.
The founders - Krubiner, Litvak and Guy Levitan - recorded the impressive exit after keeping both a low profile and high capital efficiency. Since its inception, Mize raised just $15 million from investors such as Noam Lanir, UK-based Flashpoint Venture Growth Fund, and China-based Alibaba. "We were founded as a lean startup, and we continued to work that way," Litvak explains. Thanks to this model, the founders and about 100 company employees received the lion's share of the capital. The exit is unusual for the Israeli scene, where companies tend to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, leaving the majority of their shares in the hands of the investment funds. The founders refused comment to "Globes" on the details of the sale but did confirm its existence. "Our friends know and are proud of us, and my wife (the actress Agam Rodberg) is very happy," Krubiner admits. "It's super nice to know I'll be able to buy an apartment for my three children, and it's super fun to know that I'll be able to take vacations with them for the next 20 years," Litvak says.
As far as the two are concerned, their work has just begun. The company has become an independent profit-and-loss unit within the Korean corporation, which expects to see annual growth and rewards performance accordingly.
A Korean-style Cinderella story
Mize’s purchaser, Yanulja, is one of East Asia’s largest tourism operators. The company has a market share of about 70% in Korea. It is conducting an aggressive acquisition campaign, having already added more than 15 companies to its holdings.
While Yanolja brings volume terms of deals and presence in the Asian market, Mize is the group’s technological "brain". The Israeli company develops advanced optimization algorithms that enable Yanolja to maintain a dominant position vis-à-vis booking platforms and travel agencies, and streamline profit margins using technologies based on risk management - the same way algorithms do for the capital market.
Yanolja is the embodiment of the Korean Cinderella story. It was founded by Lee Su-jin, an orphan who had worked as a hotel room service supervisor and utilized the then-fledgling internet to develop an online reservation system that turned the hotel into an empire. This success caught the attention of SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, who injected $2 billion into Yanolja for the purpose of an aggressive acquisition spree, which later included the Israeli company.
The Mize acquisition was born almost by accident, during an industry convention in Miami. "We came with the plan of selling the company to them, but the Korean representative didn’t turn up for the meeting," Krubiner recalls. The entrepreneurs were undeterred: spotting the no-show in the exhibition hall, one founder decided to introduce himself. The representative already knew about Mize and was aware that its technology had generated millions of dollars in profits for one company in the sector. After a brief conversation, he even ran after them to hand them a business card holder with his contact details. Two weeks later the deal was signed. "Opportunities exist," Krubiner concludes. "Even if the meeting didn't take place, we identified him, walked up to him, and approached him. We believe in doing the extra mile."
Krubiner and Litvak started out in the capital market. Krubiner served as an investment manager at Infinity Investment Group, and currently sits on the investment committee of Mor Provident Funds and Pension, while Litvak began his career at Yashir Investment House during the Bachar Reform era, and later turned to the online payment sector. This background led them to recognize parallels between the capital markets and the hotel booking industry, and to applying algorithmic trading principles to the travel sector, where prices fluctuate constantly, much like financial assets.
"In the capital market, we saw that the money in options trading was being made by robots and algorithms," Krubiner explains. "The capital market is the most sophisticated and competitive market there is. At the same time, we identified markets for other properties - such as hotel room bookings - that were far from perfect. A hotel room - like an option in the financial markets - has an expiration date, its price fluctuates constantly, and it can be traded. The idea was to build an algo-trading company for the online travel industry. We would execute investment strategies, assume the risk ourselves, and create value for our customers."
What lies beneath Booking.com and Expedia
Beneath the surface of websites like Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, and Agoda lies a world in which hotel room inventory is traded with high volatility, similar to financial assets. The competition between these platforms offering the exact same room requires efficiency, and Mize's algo-trading technology automatically manages the risks. The system predicts price behavior and executes "trading" in real time, taking advantage of pricing gaps.
Thus, instead of passive price comparison, the system predicts market behavior and performs optimization based on probabilistic analysis, such as waiting for the most advantageous booking time or converting a cancellable room into a non-cancellable one. The revenue model is based on profit sharing: the greater the savings it generates for the travel giants, the higher its own profits. Clients benefit from improved margins and pass the savings on to the end consumer.
"One of the biggest changes we're seeing in the market is the shift from prediction-based decisions to real-time decisions," explains Krubiner, "Travelers book closer to the date of their trip, compare prices on multiple platforms, and expect a personalized price and experience. So, AI isn’t just an advantage any more. It’s a necessary infrastructure."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 6, 2026.
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