At 42 and after nearly 20 years as CEO of Similarweb (NYSE: SMWB), the company he founded, Or Offer has announced that he will be stepping down in May 2027, and that over the next year he will be seeking his successor and handing over to his replacement in an orderly way.
"Similarweb has been my life’s work," Offer says, "When I founded the company almost 20 years ago, I thought the best time to plan the next chapter in my life would be after two decades of leadership. We are close to that point. The company continues to perform strongly, and I believe the coming year will be good."
Similarweb is indeed showing improved results, but market sentiment towards software stocks is making it difficult for it to rise. Based in Givatayim, next to Tel Aviv, the company provides customers with market data based on a platform that examines the behavior of Internet users. The data SimilarWeb provides allows customers to identify business opportunities, competitive threats, and more.
"Captain of a ship in a storm"
Similarweb has so far undertaken a journey similar to that of many software companies, Israeli and foreign: a difficult start - Offer previously said that in the early years SimilarWeb was located above an egg store in south Tel Aviv and the salary he took was low and later, good growth as a private company and private fundraising from reputable investors, including Viola Fund, Yossi Vardi and ION.
During the hype period for tech stocks, SimilarWeb decided to go public and issued its shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in May 2021, the peak year for IPOs, when the market provided tech growth companies with generous valuations, even if they were not profitable.
Similarweb was floated at a valuation of $1.6 billion (a price slightly above the requested range), and raised $165 million in the offering. As part of the move, founder and CEO Offer sold shares for about $11 million.
After it began trading, Similarweb's stock rose, although there was no market frenzy, and the peak price (in the summer of 2021) was 12.5% higher than the IPO price. Then, like many other Israeli tech companies, Similarweb's stock also suffered from a change in investor sentiment as the Covid pandemic faded away and the period of cheap money on Wall Street ended, and the stock lost tens of percent of its market cap.
At the time Offer told "Globes," "For us, the message is clear: I am the captain of a ship in a crazy storm. It is not known when it will calm down, but I am focused on the long term." It is likely that he would use this image in the current storm as well. As of today, Similarweb's share price is 81% lower than the IPO price, and the company's market cap stands at $362 million, after a 9.26% rise in the company’s share price yesterday.
This despite a recovery in the share price in 2025, because the stock has fallen again in recent months, this time due to concerns about the development of AI and its impact on the business model of Similarweb and other software companies.
The concern, which has been given the frightening name SaaSpocalypse - the apocalypse of SaaS companies (which provide software as a service in the cloud) - has led to a sharp fall in many stocks in the sector, including Israeli companies such as Monday.com, which has lost 46% since the beginning of the year, Wix, which has fallen 49%, and Fiverr, which has fallen 44%; along with Servicenow, Salesforce, and Adobe, with a fall of over 30% each.
Investors are seeing new launches from AI giants Anthropic and others, and are afraid that the solutions provided by software companies will become redundant, because organizations will be able to use AI models that they program themselves, and that the companies' business models will have to change and results will be harmed. Although there is no software company today that does not adopt AI itself - the concerns still exist and the companies are receiving significantly lower multiples than in previous years.
Barak Eilam bought shares
However, in recent weeks the stock has been on an upward trend again, and while the IGV basket of software stocks has risen about 26% in recent weeks, Similarweb's stock has jumped 77%.
The sharp rise was also supported by an expression of confidence in the stock from CEO Offer himself and three directors - chairman Harel Beit-On of Viola Fund, Barak Eilam (former Nice Systems CEO) and Tamar Rapaport-Dagim (outgoing Amdocs CFO), who purchased Similarweb shares on the open market, for amounts ranging between $129,000 and $292,000 for each buyer.
Or Offer held (according to the 2025 annual report and before buying shares last week) about 6.8% of Similarweb's shares, which are currently worth $25 million. In the five years since the NYSE IPO, Offer's remuneration costs totaled $17.7 million, nearly 80% of the amount he was given as equity compensation. Despite the stock's decline, long-time shareholders continue to hold Similarweb: According to the company's latest annual report, its stakeholders include two entities that have been with it since before the IPO - Viola Group, which holds 12.4%, with a current value of $44.6 million, and Anglo-Peacock Nominees Limited, with a 10.2% stake, with a current value of $36.7 million. Both entities have lost a significant portion of their holdings "on paper" since the IPO, but since they have been investing in Similarweb since its days as a private company, it is likely that they are still recording a profit "on paper" from their initial investments.
"In a good position"
In the first quarter 2025 report, which Similarweb published alongside the report on Ofer's retirement, the company presented 10% growth compared with the corresponding quarter, with revenue of $73.9 million, reduced the GAAP loss to $6.4 million, and on a non-GAAP basis, swung from a loss to a net profit of about $1 million. The company has revised its annual forecast range upwards.
According to "The Wall Street Journal," 6 out of 9 analysts covering the stock are neutral, and 3 are positive. Jefferies analyst Surinder Thind, who is positive, referring to the expected changes in the company's top management and the latest financial reports, writes that the CEO's departure adds uncertainty to the company, which is trying to improve its performance in an already difficult macroeconomic environment. Despite this, Thind maintains a "buy" recommendation with a target price of $4.5 (a 9% premium to the current price) and emphasizes the good financial results.
Oppenheimer also has a positive "outperform" recommendation with a price target of $4, which is currently lower than the price on the NYSE. Analyst Ken Wong writes that the company will continue to launch new products and AI agents that will support potential growth. He believes that Similarweb "is well positioned to help companies succeed in the digital world by providing digital intelligence for decision-making."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on May 26, 2026.
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