Latest / Israel Tech Daily / Palo Alto in talks for Clutch at $500 million, MongoDB nears Firebolt, two Israelis charged in AI fraud case

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Palo Alto in talks for Clutch at $500 million, MongoDB nears Firebolt, two Israelis charged in AI fraud case · Israel Tech Daily

• 0:00
  Noa: Palo Alto Networks is in talks to buy the Israeli startup Clutch Security for about $500 million, The Information reports. Clutch is about three years old, and it protects the keys and passwords that AI agents use.
• 0:20
  Noa: Good morning, it's Friday, the sixth of November. I'm Noa.
• 0:23
  Eli: And I'm Eli.
• 0:25
  Noa: Today, Palo Alto and Clutch, MongoDB closes in on Firebolt at a fraction of its old valuation, and two Israelis are charged in New York over an alleged AI fraud worth $129 million.
• 0:39
  Noa: Let's start with Clutch. According to The Information, as cited by Globes and CTech, Palo Alto Networks is negotiating to buy the company for about $500 million. If it goes ahead, it would be Palo Alto's fifth announced acquisition this year.
• 0:55
  Eli: CTech says Clutch was founded in late 2023 by chief executive Ofir Har-Chen, chief technology officer Sagi Haas and Tal Kimhi, who runs research and development. It works in Israel and the United States.
• 1:09
  Noa: What does it actually do?
• 1:10
  Eli: It deals with what the industry calls non-human identities. API keys, tokens, service accounts, and the credentials that AI agents use to act inside company systems. Globes points out that unlike a chatbot, an agent can take actions, so someone has to track what it can reach.
• 1:28
  Noa: And the money behind it?
• 1:29
  Eli: CTech counts about $28.5 million in two rounds. An $8.5 million seed led by Lightspeed in July 2024, then a $20 million Series A led by SignalFire. Globes, citing The Information, says more than $20 million.
• 1:46
  Noa: It also fits a pattern. Palo Alto recently completed its purchase of CyberArk for about $25 billion, and Globes lists other agent identity deals this year: Okta bought Permiso, SailPoint bought Entro, and Workday bought C1.ai. Palo Alto says it does not comment on rumors, and Clutch declined to comment.
• 2:07
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• 2:27
  Noa: Back to the news, and another possible deal. TheMarker reports that MongoDB, the American database company worth about $27 billion on Wall Street, is in advanced talks to buy the Israeli startup Firebolt for about $250 to $300 million. Nothing binding has been signed.
• 2:46
  Eli: The ice news site fills in the history. Firebolt was founded in 2018 by three Sisense veterans, Eldad Farkash, Saar Bitner and Ariel Yaroshevich. It builds cloud data warehouses, competing with Snowflake and Databricks.
• 3:02
  Noa: And at its peak it was a unicorn.
• 3:04
  Eli: Yes. According to ice, it raised about $270 million from investors including Zeev Ventures, TLV Partners and Bessemer, and was valued at about $1.4 billion in early 2022. Then came cuts and layoffs. In September 2025 the founders stepped back, Farkash to chairman and Bitner to president.
• 3:25
  Noa: So a sale near the amount it raised.
• 3:27
  Eli: That's how ice frames it, an exit at about the money invested, like the sale of At-Bay in August. It would be MongoDB's first acquisition in Israel. Neither company has commented.
• 3:39
  Noa: Now to New York. An indictment unsealed on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan charges three men, including two Israelis, with allegedly stealing more than $129 million from companies by impersonating their executives with AI, Ynetnews and ABC News report.
• 3:57
  Eli: Prosecutors say the group used AI-generated voices, and sometimes faces, to pose as chief executives. Employees were told about a secret deal, then sent to fake lawyers at big law firms, and finally told to wire money.
• 4:12
  Noa: The alleged victims include a British fintech company that lost about $11.6 million, a Florida pet food maker and a Missouri hospital system. Ynetnews says the money was moved through accounts in several countries and turned into crypto.
• 4:27
  Eli: The defendants are Sharon Hazan, 54, Guy Sheetrit, 42, who also lives in the UAE, and Jacob Soall, 41. Ynetnews says Sheetrit founded the digital marketing firm Over The Top SEO, and the Justice Department says Hazan was convicted of bank fraud conspiracy in 2008.
• 4:48
  Noa: All three were arrested in recent months in Spain or Britain and are awaiting extradition. Each faces seven charges, including wire fraud and money laundering. These are allegations, and no response from the defendants was reported.
• 5:02
  Eli: One more deal, closer to home. Calcalist reports that the Israeli software company Priority is buying Fireberry, formerly Powerlink, at a valuation of more than one hundred million shekels, about $31 million.
• 5:16
  Noa: Fireberry makes an AI-powered CRM, software for sales, marketing and customer service. It has thousands of customers in Israel and about thirty employees in Tel Aviv. Priority takes more than half now, with an option to buy the rest from founder Amir Segev.
• 5:33
  Eli: CTech says it's the largest of five acquisitions under chief executive Sagive Greenspan since Blackstone took control in May 2024, at an $800 million valuation. Priority now serves 75,000 customers in 70 countries.
• 5:50
  Noa: Now the quick round-up.
• 5:51
  Eli: Bria.ai, which makes image generation models trained on licensed content, is laying off about 20 of its 60 employees, CTech reports. Its vice president of research, Ron Mokady, has left.
• 6:05
  Noa: Investment in Israeli defense tech is expected to reach about $1 billion this year, up from about $360 million in 2025, Eitan Mandel of the Manufacturers Association of Israel told a conference, the Jerusalem Post reports.
• 6:21
  Eli: Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan bought another $9.7 million of Intel shares on Monday, after the stock's steepest one-day fall since 1974. CTech calculates both his purchases since August are now showing paper losses.
• 6:37
  Noa: And Payoneer says its third-quarter revenue rose five percent to $222 million, PYMNTS reports. It added a payments license in Israel during the quarter, and still aims to close its sale to Nuvei by mid-2027.
• 6:53
  Eli: What to watch: whether Palo Alto signs for Clutch. CTech notes the talks may still fail, but a deal would be its fifth this year, and a sign of how much big security companies will pay to watch over AI agents.
• 7:06
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• 7:22
  Eli: Follow Israel Tech Daily in your podcast app, and read more at startuptofollow.com.
• 7:28
  Noa: Shabbat shalom. See you Sunday morning.