Itamar Ben Hemo did not have to enter the war. At the age of 49, the Israeli tech entrepreneur was well beyond the scope of mandatory service. But after last year Attack on October 7 by Hamas, Ben Hemo enlisted as a reservist, convinced that his experience fighting as a paratrooper in Lebanon in 2006 made him valuable to his country.
In January, during what was supposed to be a quick mission to Gaza to help a wounded soldier, Ben Hemo says he remembers hearing a gunshot and feeling a searing pain. He was hit by a bullet that missed his protective vest. Several organs were damaged.
Ben Hemo was rushed to the hospital. He recalls thinking he might not make it.
While Ben Hemo recovered, the tech industry was in the midst of a rapid generational upgrade thanks to artificial intelligence. Businesses of all shapes and sizes have continued to look for ways to integrate technology into customer service, marketing and sales.
Rivery, which Ben Hemo helped launch in 2019, tackles the subject head-on, specializing in software integration through artificial intelligence. Through Ben Hemo’s hospital stay, surgeries and rehabilitation, Rivery continued to work, providing services to clients with the reassurance of other company executives.
Last week, about 11 months after Ben Hemo was hospitalized, his startup was bought Pennsylvania-based cloud software company Boomi. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Boomi CEO Steve Lucas told CNBC it was “around $100 million.”
Lucas describes Boomi as “Google Translate for business,” taking the many different types of software a company uses, regardless of programming language, and integrating it all into one functional system. What makes Rivery so attractive, he said, is that it helps advance software integration by doing it in real life. time in the cloud using artificial intelligence to analyze different types of data sets.
During his three-month recovery, Ben Hemo held company meetings and talked to investors from his hospital bed.
Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of Israeli attacks on houses, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 29, 2023.
Mohammed Salem | Reuters
“To me, anyone with that kind of spirit has what it takes to make software work,” Lucas said.
Rivery has about 100 employees and 450 clients from all over the world. Ben Hemo said he was approached by several other suitors, but did not pursue a deal until after Boomi emailed his investors. Key early backers included Entrée Capital, State of Mind and Tiger Global Management.
Lucas said the development of artificial intelligence is happening so quickly that if companies are slow to adopt the technology, the risks are existential.
“If you’re a CEO and you’re not thinking about how your company can have units powered by artificial intelligence, you could be the next Blockbuster,” Lucas said, speaking of ruin the once dominant video rental services.
Lucas says that adding Rivery to Booma will allow the combined company to keep AI on track, and when it goes off track, it will be able to recognize it and bring in a human to quickly resolve any customer service issues that arise.
“Without data, incomplete or scattered, there is no artificial intelligence,” said Ben Hemo. “We found a way to handle that as information comes in, interpreting it and organizing it for clients.”
Boomi CEO Steve Lucas
Boom
Still, Lucas says he is well aware of the risks of making a significant investment in Israel.
The war that began more than 14 months ago with the invasion of Hamas is not over. Israel is still the target of rockets from Gaza and ballistic missiles from as far away as Yemen. More than 100 hostages taken from Israel are still in captivity, and it is not clear how many are still alive.
In Gaza, the human toll and financial cost cannot be calculated, but Hamas claims more than 40,000 people have been killed. Images from the region show that very few buildings remain intact due to the ongoing war.
“I’d be lying if I said we didn’t consider the risks of doing business in Israel,” Lucas said. “But some of the best technology in the world came from Israel.”
Shortly after Ben Hemo was shot, another Rivery employee, Itay Galea, was killed in the line of duty in northern Israel, where the country was fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah. Galea, a 38-year-old reserve officer, was given a stake in Rivery so his surviving family would benefit from dealing with Boomi.
According to the Israel Innovation Authority, which is part of the Israeli government, about 15% of tech workers left their jobs to join the military because of the war. Foreign investors gave up buying and investing.
But there are signs of recovery.
A recent report by PwC Israel shows that the total number of exits from Israeli start-ups eclipsed 2023, and the average deal size now surpasses 2022 numbers. Rotem Eldar of Israeli venture firm 10D said: “The fundraising numbers for 2024 are now starting to match the pre-war numbers.” A report by 10D found that cybersecurity companies are the biggest area of focus for investors.
Since the attack on Israel in October 2023, the stock market has risen.
Israel’s stock market has also seen a recovery, with Stock Exchange in Tel Aviv more than doubled from its October 2023 lows.
For Ben Ham, the sale to Boomi marks his second successful departure as CEO and founder. He says he has now fully recovered from his wounds.
“I have the energy for this,” he said. “I’m so excited, we all understand the gift of this opportunity.”
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