The Israeli tech ecosystem continued to break records in H1 2021, demonstrating substantial growth in the number unicorns, IPOs and funding activity.

Here are the main takeaways from Viola Data H1’21 report:

• The fundraising activity in H1’21 has leapfrogged to $12.2B – a 125%(!)-increase over the capital raised in H1’20.

• The first six months of 2021 exceeded 2020’s total annual funding, with a higher rate (105%) than the U.S and the rest of the world.

• Importantly, Israel remains the 4th largest tech ecosystem in terms of capital raised (right after the U.S, China, and the UK), which illustrates its attractiveness for local and global investors.

• Early stage remains healthy, while average deal size increased to $9.2M (from $5.7M two years ago).

• Growth and mega-rounds continue to act as a major growth driver of the Israeli tech ecosystem. 72 growth-rounds (compared with 48 in H1’20) and an all-time high of 40 mega-rounds, x5 their volume in H1’20. Overall, the number of mega-rounds in H1’21 resembles a full-year activity scope!

• The number of unicorns continues to grow at an unprecedented rate: 24 Unicorns added in the last six months, ranking Israel as the global #2 in H1 in producing new unicorns, twice as many as China.

• H1 IPO surge exceeded 2020 and all previous years, reaching a record number of $62.1B (in market cap) with ironSource, SimiliarWeb, Payoneer, Monday.com, SentinelOne, etc. going public in the US public markets.

• Secondary is becoming a more common liquidity strategy – H1 saw an increase both in number and size. Our analysis shows that the rate of undisclosed secondary rounds of total capital raised has grown from 15% in 2019 to 20% in 1H21.

A note about methodology: Over the past several years, we have witnessed a shift towards bigger funding rounds in every series, expanding the series’ deal size range, making the traditional “A,B,C” classification less effective or accurate in representing a company’s growth or maturity. This had led us to adopt a new numerical approach as shown in the report. We will continue to use this methodology going in the future reports.

Download the full report