“The Centaur is a business that reaches $100 million of annual recurring revenue (ARR)—a rare breed of cloud business, part of an elite subset of the growing unicorn herd.”
Bessemer
Today there are over 1,000 unicorns globally. But becoming a Unicorn, or receiving a billion dollar valuation is no longer an indication of growth. It’s more of a reflection of investor appetite and belief in future growth potential. The term ‘Centaur’, coined by venture capital firm Bessemer, indicates companies that achieved $100M in annual recurring revenue (ARR).
Here’s the benchmarks Bessemer uses to measure this growth
Tech12, an Israeli news publication, embarked on a special project to highlight the 32 Israeli startups that reached a Centaur status.
Meet the Israeli Centaurs
- AtBay – insurance for the digital age
- Artlist – royalty free music and SFX for videos
- Armis – asset cybersecurity platform
- AppsFlyer – mobile attribution analytics
- Checkmarx – application security platform
- Cloudinary – image and video cloud CDN
- Cybereason – predict and prevent ransomware attacks
- Deel – global employee payroll solution
- eToro – social investing platform
- Fireblocks – digital asset custodian
- Forter – fraud detection for digital commerce
- Fundbox – short term loans working capital for SMBs
- Gong – record, transcribe and analyse b2b sales calls
- Honeybook – client management software for small businesses
- Lightricks – a suite of content creation and editing apps
- Minute Media – user generated content for sports platform
- MoonActive – leading mobile gaming publisher
- MyHeritage – consumer genealogy platform
- OwnBackup – SaaS data protection and disaster recovery
- Papaya Global – global employee payroll platform
- Rapyd – a global fast payments API
- Redis – open source in-memory cloud database
- Simply (formerly Joytunes) – consumer music learning apps
- SiSense – BI analytics platform
- Snyk – developer security for open source code
- Tipalti – end to end automation for payables, partner payments and procurement
- Transmit Security – eliminate password with secure client authentication
- Trax – advanced in-store retail automations
- Vast – flash data storage solutions
- Verbit – AI based transcription and captioning service
- Wiz – secure everything you build and run in the cloud
- Yotpo – online commerce reviews, marketing and loyalty solutions
Immediately noticeable in this list is the large number of cybersecurity companies, but equally impressive is the number of Israeli startups in the consumer space (Moon active, Simply, Lightricks, Minute Media, MyHeritage) getting to over $100 million in ARR. I’m excited for the talent that will spin out of those companies to create the next generation of B2C stars coming out of Israel. Sorry for the humbrag, but I’m proud to see Minute Media, our Remagine Ventures portfolio company (and our only later stage investment) on this prestigious list.
Israeli startups raised a record of $26.6 billion in 2021, and so far the fears of a recession haven’t materialised in 2022 despite the global slowdown in venture activity. Israeli startups raised $1.1 billion in August and over $2.5 billion in September alone, reaching over $17.4 billion in the first 9 months of 2022. The best is yet to come.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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