A new way of dogfooding ? Tech startup buys dog food factory The founders of IronSource have a new startup which acquires pet food and cosmetics brands for marketing on an e-commerce platform that combines AI and data science to predict and distribute products. ZyG Edge has raised more $40 million but its brand recognition has a long way to go in a saturated market. In the Holon industrial zone stands a small dog food packing plant, a modest-looking place, located among garages, warehouses, and craft workshops. The factory delivers "Mills" brand premium dog food all over Israel, in flavors you’d be more likely to find at a Tel Aviv brunch ("venison, sweet potato and strawberry", "salmon, trout and asparagus"). The company's website promises personalized packaging for each dog, determined through a short questionnaire about the pet’s characteristics. And yes, samples are also available for tasting.
The small, seemingly family business - certainly not eye-catching - belongs to Mills Food Live, a subsidiary of ZyG Edge, one of the most intriguing startups in Israel. ZyG is backed by a "dream team" which includes the founders of ironSource - Omer Kaplan and Tomer Bar-Zeev - together with senior executives who have been involved in its success for over a decade, such as CFO Assaf Ben Ami, and investor Daniel Shinar of VC fund Claltech.
Same formula, less code
Omer Kaplan and his team did not found Mills and its packing plant. They purchased the company from its previous owner, Yitzhak Licht , and transformed it from a local Israeli business to a brand now making its foray into the North American market. ZyG has launched a slick English-language website for the Mills brand, featuring photos and videos of good-looking, healthy dogs. However, anyone searching the site for information about the founders or owners will find it difficult. Only on the "Terms of Use" page is it disclosed that Mills operates through a marketing company called ZyG Pets.
Mills is an unusual product within the environment that the ironSource founders built at Zyg. It was an existing brand bought by the company with its founder joining to lead its development into a global brand. The model the company aspires to is very similar to that of ironSource in the latter stages of its existence: enable any consumer brand, any company with its own proprietary product, to join ZyG's platform and distribute it to customers through its channels. This same strategy transformed ironSource from a simple program for downloading antivirus software into a cash cow.
Another product promoted by ZyG is in cosmetics: the Okoa skincare series, which, according to the website, contains active ingredient IDEALIFT, and promises "results within minutes." ZyG is also mentioned on the website and social networks as the owner of the brand, albeit under another marketing company name: ZyG Lifestyle.
The e-commerce conundrum
ironSource was founded in 2010 under a different name, "installCore." Even at that time, it already had sophisticated artificial intelligence capabilities, able to predict better than other engines the type of software different users would want to install, based on their habits, tastes, and type of device.
Later on, ironSource became huge thanks to a unique acquisition strategy: the company acquired other companies with complementary products and made their founders full partners. Thus, the number of founders expanded to eight, when it merged with companies that developed software for distribution, toolbars, product comparisons, software for embedding advertisements during installation, and more. Omer Kaplan, who was not part of the founding team in 2010, became part of the company only after his company, AfterDownload, was acquired.
In the previous decade, ironSource was been one of Israel’s most profitable companies, providing its shareholders with billions of dollars in dividends and cash, activity that culminated in 2021 with a huge investment by private equity firm Thoma Bravo at an $11 billion valuation.
That same year, ioronSource merged with gaming company Unity at a $4.4 billion valuation, but the integration with the American company was challenging. Kaplan, Bar-Zeev and Ben-Ami left in 2024 and set out to establish a new company in a sector that ironSource had tried to penetrate without success: e-commerce.
A brand-sales engine
Today, according to informed sources, ZyG is developing an engine that - using artificial intelligence tools and data science - will help consumer products brand managers to develop, launch, and sell products directly to the consumer. The company explains to brand managers that although Amazon and Shopify have made launching products easier than ever, establishing, and managing a profitable e-commerce business over time remains a far more complex challenge.
ZyG's engine, which is expected to be unveiled when development is complete, is designed to address two main challenges. The first is identifying product-market fit, using fast testing and algorithms to predict a product's success even before its launch. The second is large-scale distribution, which the company intends to optimize through AI-based automation for all stages of sales. The platform, according to the company, will be able to support hundreds of brands at the same time, similar to the distribution model developed by ironSource in the computer and mobile games sector.
However, distributing a consumer product is fundamentally different from distributing an app. It demands a much more expensive and complex sales, production, and logistics system. Penetrating a saturated market, especially luxury brands, is also an almost impossible task for unfunded companies.
Followers are few
ZyG has raised one of Israel's largest ever seed rounds, between $40 million and $50 million, led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Viola Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Among the other investors are veteran ironSource investors, such as Len Blavatnik's Claltech , Tal Barnoach's Disruptive VC , Danny Peled's Stardom Ventures, Emerge Ventures , Schestowitz Holdings , and Moon Active founder Samuel Albin .
ZyG and the brands that grow out of it are expected to face tough competition from two companies with Israeli roots and extensive experience in marketing skincare and consumer products: entrepreneur Oran Holtzman's Oddity Tech , which promotes successful digital brands such as Il Makiage and SpoiledChild ; and Zvika Barinboim and Leumi Partners' skincare company Maelys Cosmetics , which operates out of Cyprus and New York. The two share a similar vision: extensive use of data science, consumer behavior analysis, and network-focused targeting to distribute brands to the end consumer.
At present, the digital presence for ZyG Edge and its brands Mills and Okoa, is still basic. Their social media accounts are light on content with few followers, and the company itself has not yet officially launched its services or made public statements.
ZyG Edge declined to comment in response to a request from "Globes."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on November 10, 2025.
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