Israeli Tech Hall of Fame
The Israeli Tech Hall of Fame presents companies that left a documented milestone in the history of technology in Israel and around the world.
This English edition covers selected entries, chosen for translation from the full Hebrew site. More parts of the site are being translated gradually.
Questions this category answers
What did the company make, and who used its product?
Which documented milestone earns it a place in the hall?
Who founded it, and how did the business develop?
What happened to the company after the IPO, acquisition or closure?
Which people, companies and technologies carried on its legacy?
More about this category
It includes companies that built products used by millions of people, companies that founded a field of technology, and companies whose IPO or sale broke an Israeli record in its time. Each card shows the milestone and what became of the company, and links to the full entry and the sources the listing relies on.
The list is divided into periods: the foundations, the 1990s and the dot-com bubble, mobile and cloud, and the era of cloud and artificial intelligence. The year ranges overlap on purpose: these are historical groups that help read the story, not a rigid split by founding year. Companies are grouped by the period in which they started, and what happened to them later is told alongside.
A sale to a foreign corporation is not the end of the technology story. Sometimes the product continues under a new name, the development center stays in Israel, or former employees found new companies. In other cases the business splits up or closes. A resounding missed opportunity that became a documented national story can also be included; a place in the hall is not a certificate of lasting business success.
The full entries describe the product, the founders, the business history and the legacy. An announced deal is distinguished from its completion, and an announced amount from accounting consideration or contingent payment. Companies that have an entry in another category appear here through the same page, without a second copy. The hall grows in batches, after sources are verified.
What is not here
The hall focuses on documented historical milestones. It is not a ranking of company value or a recommendation of their products. AI activity is not a condition for inclusion. A company that already has an entry in another category is shown here too, while keeping its original category and entry page.
1962–1989
Amdocs
The milestone: Amdocs' billing and customer-service systems support telecom services for millions of people around the world, through the telecom operators.
What came next: An active public company on Nasdaq, providing software and services to telecom operators.
Comverse
The milestone: In the 1990s it led the world market for voicemail systems for telecom operators; in 1999 it was reported to have a 42% share and more than 300 telecom companies as customers.
What came next: The holding company ended in a merger with Verint in 2013; the communications business was spun off and continued in other forms.
Elron
The milestone: A pioneer of Israeli high tech: the Times of Israel described it as the first Israel-based multinational high-tech holding company, and Globes as Israel's first technology incubator; Elbit and Elscint grew out of it
What came next: Active as a public investment company under the name Elron Ventures
Elscint
The milestone: The first Israeli company whose shares traded on Nasdaq (1972); in 1992 it introduced the CT Twin, the first modern CT scanner with two rows of detectors
What came next: Its imaging businesses were sold to Picker and GE in November 1998; the company moved into hotels and real estate and was merged into Elbit Medical Imaging in 2005
Indigo
The milestone: In 1993 it introduced the world's first digital color offset press.
What came next: Acquired by HP in 2002; the business continues as HP Indigo.
Netafim
The milestone: Commercialized the practical dripper in 1966 and spread drip irrigation as a global industry
What came next: Active within Orbia; Hatzerim kept 20% in the 2018 deal
Orbotech
The milestone: Optrotech, from which Orbotech grew, was first to market with automated optical inspection systems for printed circuit boards.
What came next: Acquired by KLA in 2019; the technology continues in inspection and manufacturing equipment.
Scitex
The milestone: The Response 300, introduced in 1979, was one of the world's first computerized systems for color prepress; Optica and Ynet describe it as the first digital prepress computer
What came next: Its businesses were sold to Creo, Kodak and HP; the parent company became Scailex
1988–2000
Check Point
The milestone: FireWall-1 brought a firewall with stateful inspection to market; the technology Gil Shwed developed became the basis for modern firewalls.
What came next: An independent public company, traded on Nasdaq since 1996.
Chromatis Networks
The milestone: Its acquisition by Lucent, announced in May 2000 in a stock deal of about $4.5 billion, was then the largest acquisition of an Israeli company; about 15 months later the business was shut down.
What came next: Acquired by Lucent in 2000; the business was shut down in August 2001.
CyberArk
The milestone: Palo Alto Networks' acquisition of CyberArk, announced in 2025 at a value of about $25 billion, is the second-largest deal in the history of Israeli tech, after the Wiz deal.
What came next: Palo Alto Networks completed the acquisition on 11 February 2026; the identity security business continues within the group.
Galileo Technology
The milestone: Galileo was a foundation of the communications chip industry in Israel: its business became the Israeli development center of Marvell, which acquired it in a stock deal announced in 2000 valued at about $2.7 billion, and Mellanox grew out of its alumni.
What came next: Acquired by Marvell in 2001; its business was merged into the buyer's communications chip business.
Given Imaging
The milestone: It commercialized the PillCam camera capsule and capsule endoscopy; according to the company, more than two million exams had been done with its products by 2013.
What came next: Acquired by Covidien in 2014; the PillCam product line continued at Medtronic.
ICQ / Mirabilis
The milestone: ICQ brought instant messaging to millions of users around the world; in 2001 the service had about 100 million registered users.
What came next: Mirabilis was sold to AOL in 1998; the ICQ service shut down on 26 June 2024.
M-Systems
The milestone: Developed the DiskOnKey, one of the portable storage products that became a global standard for moving files.
What came next: Acquired by SanDisk in 2006; its business was merged into the buyer.
Mellanox Technologies
The milestone: Mellanox's InfiniBand and Ethernet networks became infrastructure for supercomputing; the NVIDIA deal, announced in 2019, was the second-largest Israeli tech exit at the time.
What came next: NVIDIA completed the acquisition on 27 April 2020 for about $7 billion; the business was folded into its networking operations.
Mercury Interactive
The milestone: Its acquisition by HP in 2006 for about $4.5 billion was the largest cash deal in Israeli high tech up to that time, according to Globes and TheMarker.
What came next: Acquired by HP in 2006; the LoadRunner product line continues today at OpenText.
Mobileye
The milestone: Intel's 2017 acquisition of Mobileye at a value of $15.3 billion broke the record at the time for the acquisition of an Israeli company.
What came next: Acquired by Intel in 2017 and listed again on Nasdaq in 2022; Intel remained the controlling owner.
NDS
The milestone: Its VideoGuard system protected pay-TV broadcasts in about 110 million households in 2011; in 2012, 114 million were reported.
What came next: Acquired by Cisco in 2012; business that originated at the company continues in Synamedia.
2005–2015
Annapurna Labs
The milestone: The chips Annapurna develops are the hardware foundation of AWS. According to Amazon, in 2022 48 of AWS's 50 largest customers ran production workloads on Graviton2, and by 2024 more than two million Graviton chips had been installed in its data centers.
What came next: Acquired by Amazon in 2015; continues as AWS's chip development arm.
Better Place
The milestone: It built 37 battery swap stations and about 1,800 charging points in Israel, and a nationwide swap network in Denmark, when electric cars were rare; a resounding missed opportunity whose idea later returned to the global market.
What came next: Went into liquidation in 2013 and its assets were sold in parts; the charging network went to Gnrgy, and the battery swapping idea kept developing in the car industry.
PrimeSense
The milestone: Its 3D sensing technology was built into the Xbox 360 Kinect, which according to Guinness World Records was the fastest-selling consumer electronics device up to that time; more than ten million units were sold by May 2011.
What came next: Acquired by Apple in 2013; the team and know-how were merged into its development work.
Viber
The milestone: A calling and messaging app that reached hundreds of millions of registered accounts; in February 2014 Rakuten reported about 100 million monthly active users.
What came next: Acquired by Rakuten in March 2014; the service continues under the name Rakuten Viber.
Waze
The milestone: It developed real-time community navigation that reached millions of drivers around the world, by combining maps, driving data and reports from users.
What came next: Acquired by Google in June 2013; the app continues under the Waze brand.
Wix
The milestone: The website-building platform reached 250 million users around the world in 2023, according to Wix and to Google's case study.
What came next: An active company, public on Nasdaq; continues to develop website-building tools and services for businesses.
2012–2026
monday.com
The milestone: According to the company, its work management platform is used by millions of users around the world; in its annual report for 2025 it reported more than 250,000 customers.
What came next: An active company, public on Nasdaq since 2021.
Wiz
The milestone: Google's $32 billion acquisition of Wiz set a record for an Israeli exit and a record for an acquisition in Google's history.
What came next: The acquisition was completed on 11 March 2026; Wiz joined Google Cloud and kept its brand.
📋 Criteria for entries in this category
A company is included in the hall only if it has at least one milestone documented at a national or global level: (a) a historical "first", such as the first high-tech company, the first IPO on Nasdaq, or a world-first invention in its field; (b) an exit or IPO that broke an Israeli record in its time; or (c) a product used by millions of people around the world, or one that founded an entire industry. The milestone is documented in at least two reliable sources. Size, value or number of employees alone are not enough. Companies that were sold or closed are included too, as is a resounding missed opportunity that became a documented national story.