Update: An earlier version of this post identified the firm that was supposedly buying Yozma’s shares, but they’re now denying that they were involved in the deal, so I have removed them from the story at their request.
Yozma Venture Capital is selling its stake in startup Conduit for a massive return. The story was reported in the Israeli publication Globes, but I’ve confirmed the details with a source who has knowledge of the deal.
Yozma invested $1.5 million for 9 percent ownership of Conduit in 2006. Now it’s selling its stake for $250 million to an unidentified investor. In other words, it’s seeing a return that’s nearly 200 times the size of the initial investment. According to Globes, the Israeli venture capital industry has never seen a return on that scale.
This deal values Conduit at $2.5 billion — which, incidentally, puts it in the billion-dollar league that Index Ventures partner Saul Klein predicted for it last year. The company started out as a toolbar startup, partnering with both Google and then Microsoft, but it recently rebranded as a wide-ranging service to help publishers engage their users. Conduit says it works with 260,000 publishers to reach 250 million users in 120 companies.
Conduit empowers web and mobile publishers to engage their users across multiple platforms. From Community Toolbars and mobile apps to notifications and web bars, the company’s products enable publishers to constantly connect with their users wherever they are. Conduit’s innovative solutions have made it the fastest-growing network of publishers in the world, with more than 260,000 publishers of all sizes generating billions of monthly interactions with their 250 million users. Major League Baseball, Groupon, Fox News, Travelocity, and The...
The Yozma Group is an Israeli venture capital firm that focuses its investments in the Communications, Information Technologies, and Life Sciences sectors. Since its inception in 1993, they have managed over $170 Million across two funds.
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