Israeli cybersecurity company Cobwebs Technologies today announced the completion of a $10 million financing round. The company did not say who invested in the round, but sources inform "Globes" that the investor was US hedge found Ibex Investors (formerly Lazarus). Cobwebs, which specializes in gathering intelligence data with a security orientation from all over the Internet, has hitherto stayed out of the public eye. The current round follows a $2 million seed round by the company from private investors when Cobwebs was founded in 2015.
Entrepreneurs president Omri Timianker, CEO Udi Levy, and CTO Shay Attias, all alumni of special IDF units, founded Cobwebs. Levy formerly worked at Verint Systems (Nasdsaq: VRNT) and Elbit Systems (Nasdaq: ESLT; TASE: ESLT). The three founders developed technology for gathering intelligence data with a security orientation from all over the Internet using big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning. Cobwebs says that its annual revenue turnover is in the tens of millions of dollars. It supplies products to many companies, including many government agencies, security agencies, and business concerns throughout the world. The company works on two models: sales of software products to government agencies and a licensed cloud product, mainly for the business sector.
Cobwebs' product is a search engine that gather data from the Internet and is capable of gathering both public and concealed information that has not been indexed or classified by conventional search engines like Google. This information, plus information from the social networks, which is also not accessible through an ordinary search, is analyzed by the company through an AI and machine learning algorithm. Business and security information relevant to Cobwebs' customers is extracted from this information.
Timianker told "Globes," "The approach we brought to the market differs from the other big data companies. They developed systems capable of gather information from many sources, but a lot of technological knowledge is needed in order to work with the systems that they developed, and many agencies that would have had to spend millions on the programs do everything by hand. Our approach was to be focused. Our system gathers information only from the web, and does everything automatically."
Cobwebs has 60 employees: 50 in Israel and the rest in its offices around the world. The company's announcement of the financing round stated that the money was earmarked for accelerated global expansion, hiring leading personnel, and mergers and acquisitions. Over the coming year, the company will hire dozens of additional employees in Israel and abroad.
Ibex is a US fund that invests in private and public companies in Israel and manages assets worth $500 million. The fund has invested over $300 million in 19 private companies and 19 public companies in Israel to date. Ibex was one of the investors in Dome9, sold to Check Point (Nasdaq: CHKP) in 2018 for $175 million. Up until last year, the fund had no local presence at all, but opened an office in Tel Aviv in early 2018.
Founded: 2015
Founders: President Omri Timianker, CEO Udi Levy, and CTO Shay Attias
Employees: 60, including 50 in Israel
Financing rounds: $12 million: $2 million in a seed round and $10 million in an A round.
Prominent investors: Ibex Investors and private investors.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on March 24, 2019
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