Latest / Israel Tech Daily / Upwind and a reported $4 billion Datadog offer, Visa's reported Fireblocks talks, and Wiz on a major PHP flaw

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Upwind and a reported $4 billion Datadog offer, Visa's reported Fireblocks talks, and Wiz on a major PHP flaw · Israel Tech Daily

• 0:00
  Noa: Israeli cloud security company Upwind has reportedly turned down a $4 billion offer from Datadog. But not everyone agrees the offer was ever made.
• 0:14
  Noa: Good morning, it's Friday, the twenty-third of October. I'm Noa.
• 0:18
  Eli: And I'm Eli.
• 0:20
  Noa: Today, Upwind and Datadog, a reported Visa deal for Fireblocks that Fireblocks denies, and Wiz researchers at the center of a serious flaw in the code behind most websites.
• 0:31
  Noa: We start with Upwind. The Information reported on Thursday that Datadog offered to buy the company for nearly $4 billion. Globes says Upwind turned the offer down and chose to raise money instead.
• 0:43
  Eli: And CTech has a different version. It says it learned that the reported offer was not made. So for now, we have one report of an offer, and one outlet saying there wasn't one.
• 0:52
  Noa: What both agree on is the funding. Upwind is completing a $300 million round at a valuation of $3.8 billion.
• 1:01
  Eli: That's a fast climb. CTech says Upwind raised $250 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion in January, so the valuation has more than doubled in less than a year. Globes says that earlier round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners.
• 1:17
  Noa: And this isn't the first time Datadog's name has come up. Globes says that last year the two companies were reported to be in talks on a deal worth about $1 billion, which did not happen.
• 1:28
  Eli: Upwind was founded in 2022 by Amiram Shachar, its chief executive. The Information reported that its annual recurring revenue passed $50 million, up from about $20 million at the end of last year. CTech says customers include Roku and Brazil's Nubank.
• 1:45
  Noa: Another possible Israeli exit, also from a report. Axios says Visa is in advanced talks to buy Fireblocks for about $2.5 billion. Fireblocks denies it, and Bizportal says Visa did not respond.
• 1:58
  Eli: Fireblocks builds infrastructure for holding, moving and managing digital assets and stablecoins, for banks, exchanges and payment companies. Bizportal points out that in January 2022 it raised $550 million at a valuation of $8 billion. A sale at $2.5 billion would be about seventy percent below that.
• 2:20
  Noa: And Visa is already a buyer in Israel. Globes notes that in August it agreed to buy BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash, a deal that still needs regulatory approval.
• 2:31
  Eli: Bizportal also places it next to Mastercard, which completed its purchase of British stablecoin company BVNK about two months ago, for up to $1.8 billion including payments tied to targets.
• 2:44
  Noa: Next, security. A serious flaw in PHP, the programming language behind WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, has been patched, and Israeli company Wiz is at the center of the story.
• 2:55
  Eli: Calcalist says the flaw, called PHP2Shell, is really two vulnerabilities that, under certain conditions, let an attacker run commands on a server without logging in. Wiz says PHP is used by about seventy percent of websites, though Calcalist stresses that doesn't mean they are all equally exposed.
• 3:14
  Noa: Wiz researchers used advanced AI models to find and study it. Wiz co-founder and chief technology officer Ami Luttwak told Calcalist it is the most serious security flaw ever found using AI.
• 3:26
  Eli: According to the PHP Foundation, researchers at Calif and at OpenAI also reported related flaws in August. Details leaked before the planned release, so the patches came out a day early, on October twenty-first.
• 3:40
  Noa: Calcalist says Amazon's security team saw an attack attempt on October seventeenth and later reported widespread exploitation, though it is unclear how many attempts led to real breaches. Globes says sites on older versions, five point four through eight point one, cannot use the update and will need other protection.
• 3:59
  Eli: Now, funding with famous names. Calcalist reports that 2Delta, an Israeli AI company founded last year, raised a seed round of tens of millions of dollars. The investors include Bill Ackman of Pershing Square and former Google chairman Eric Schmidt.
• 4:17
  Noa: It was founded by Dvir Zeltzer, a former senior Google executive, and Dr. Eli David, who founded DeepCube, later sold to Nano Dimension. Globes says it has fewer than ten employees in Tel Aviv.
• 4:30
  Eli: Its technology makes AI models run faster and use computing more efficiently. With Nvidia, it developed a method to speed up Nvidia's Nemotron model. Calcalist says tests showed about twice the throughput of standard decoding, while Globes reports a speedup of three and a half times.
• 4:48
  Noa: Ackman disclosed the investment while in Israel for a conference at Sheba Medical Center. Globes quotes him saying Israel will be one of the best economies in the world, because it has the most IQ and IP per capita.
• 5:00
  Eli: One more legal story. In an interview with Globes, Papaya Gaming co-founder and chief executive Ariel Bachar says the company will fight a $719 million judgment in the United States.
• 5:12
  Noa: The rival Skillz sued in 2024, claiming Papaya presented its cash prize games as human-only competitions while using bots. Globes says the court found Papaya used bots from 2021 to 2023, and in July set the award at $719 million.
• 5:30
  Eli: Papaya is appealing. Bachar says bots are an industry standard, the games were fair, and the award is about seven times the company's profit in that period. A Tel Aviv court has blocked collection in Israel while the judgment is not final, and Papaya proposes paying over six and a quarter years, in a settlement overseen by an administrator.
• 5:51
  Noa: Now the quick round-up.
• 5:52
  Eli: Globes reports that OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX are all building a presence in Israel. OpenAI hired two senior local executives, Anthropic is selling through partners CloudZone, Abra and AllCloud, and SpaceX picked Malam Team's E-Square as its only Israeli representative.
• 6:11
  Noa: Analysts are more upbeat on Wix. Globes says Cantor Fitzgerald raised its price target to $90 and Oppenheimer set one of $85, with the stock around $77. Oppenheimer estimates Base44 alone could be worth $1.5 billion or more.
• 6:28
  Eli: And Toronto-listed ticketing software company Eventer Technologies says it will buy the remaining forty-nine percent of its Israeli subsidiary for $5.1 million, and raise up to about $4 million to pay for it, subject to exchange approval.
• 6:43
  Noa: One thing to watch. Globes and CTech both say Upwind is completing its $300 million round at a $3.8 billion valuation. If it announces that round, it tells us Upwind is staying independent, at least for now.
• 6:58
  Eli: Follow Israel Tech Daily wherever you get your podcasts, and read more at startuptofollow.com.
• 7:04
  Noa: Shabbat shalom. See you Sunday morning.