Startups have raised over $2.8 billion in the first five months of 2019, on course to beat the record $6.4 billion raised by startups in 2018.
Israeli startups raised over $500 million in May, according to press releases issued by companies that have completed financing rounds. The figure may be more as some companies prefer not to publicize the investments they have received. After raising $1.55 billion in the first quarter of the year, according to IVC, Israeli startups raised $750 million in April and $500 million last month for a total of $2.8 billion in the first five months of 2019.
This figure is on course to beat last year's record startup fund raising , when according to IVC-ZAG, Israeli startups raised $6.4 billion, up from $5.24 billion in 2017.
As usual, most of the money raised last month, was in large financing rounds by a small number of companies. $350 million was raised by just seven companies.
In May, taxi hailing company Gett led with a $120 million financing round. Cloud protection company Guardicore raised $60 million and log analysis company logz.io raised $52 million. Storage company Weka.io raised $31.7 million, drug developer Ayala Pharmaceuticals raised $30 million, cybersecurity company Siemplify raised $30 million and cloud-to-cloud backup company OwnBackup raised $23.25 million.