This is a great news. Specially for the Israeli internet ecosystem.
After Shopping.com this is the second major acquisition of eBay in Israel. Not as important as Shopping.com (400+m USD) but still (170 million USD cash).
FraudSciences specialized in Fraud detection was founded 4 years ago and funded by BRM and RedPoint Ventures
Nice series of Acquisitions lately in the israeli internet space after Yedda, Oridian, Quigo and now this one.
More on TechCrunch and IsraelPlug
N'est-il pas pas dommage de voir que les start-ups israéliennes se font racheter par des géants américains ou européens plutôt que de se développer par elle même ? C'est un vrai problème! Je ne sais pas s'il faut se rejouir de tous ces rachats...
Posted by: Marc | 29 January 2008 at 09:50 AM
Marc asks a good question: isn't it sad to see successful israel startups to get acquired rather than acquiring. I guess the answer is yes and no. It is great to see success rewarded and aknowledged. But i assume that a VC backed startup is always looking for a good exit strategy and the trade-off is always easier when a check comes on the table.
But honestly if we can keep this track i would say that the israeli internet market would not be so bad.
Posted by: Ouriel Ohayon | 29 January 2008 at 09:57 AM
Ouriel.
If I remember correctly Shopping.com was 600+m.
I guess marc is right. Maybe its the nature of being fast and innovative and less of the type of companies that grow to be a mature stable company before they get acquired.
maybe Americans are better in stabilizing a business to the stage it can acquire others.
BTW: for the recored, Dealtime (IL company) did acquire epinions before they formed Shopping.com.
Posted by: Ori Lahav | 04 February 2008 at 02:05 PM