When Two Qumra Portfolio Companies Meet

The first time I heard the Vdoo story from Nati Davidi, Uri Alter, and Asaf Karas in April 2020 just as the Corona hit us all, it felt like Déjà vu. For a moment I thought I was in JFrog‘s office with  its founders; Shlomi Bem Haim, Fred Simon and Yoav Landman. Similar to JFrog, Vdoo’s technology analyzed the Binary code, but this time to find security vulnerabilities. But it wasn’t just the technology approach that was similar, it was also the professionalism, passion, values, and DNA I had met in the past. I fell in love with JFrog, and here it was happening all over again.

I immediately understood that they were on to something new and something big. Something untapped. They could identify vulnerabilities in the binary code and fix them. I could see the promise and the huge market potential. And though it was at the height of COVID and the entire process was online, I was very confident in the potential. We made progress quickly and closed the deal very soon after – in September. September was also the month of the amazing IPO of JFrog. With this milestone, I stepped down from the JFrog board and joined Vdoo’s BoD. I began working closely with Nati, sharing my professional market and go-to-market experience, along with insights on what growth companies need to scale. The more we worked together, the more evident it became to me that a connection to JFrog would be powerful. JFrog’s vision to become the leading company in the DevSecOps market and secure binaries flowing from the developers’ machines to the edge, together with Vdoo’s platform and technology for binaries’ security, would be a perfect match.

I shared my thoughts with Shlomi, JFrog’s CEO over coffee during one of his visits to Israel. I naively thought we could set up a strategic partnership that would serve both parties. Shlomi and Nati were keen to meet, and well, the rest is history.

Shlomi saw the same potential I saw in Vdoo and Nati understood immediately that JFrog has a great platform to deliver its security capabilities to thousands of enterprise customers. The connection was fast and real. Very quickly cooperation translated into an M&A which was recently announced and is most likely the largest Israeli buying Israeli tech deal. Vdoo’s world-class security experts will join the JFrog team, headed by their leadership team to continue and develop advanced security solutions that deliver a complete DevSecOps solution to secure the full software packages lifecycle

I am extremely proud of this deal. As the Israeli tech market continues to grow and mature, exceeding all expectations, Israeli companies emerge as global significant players. Inorganic growth in form of acquisitions is a muscle being built by Israeli companies, however, most of the acquisitions are of foreign companies. Large Israeli companies buying Israeli start-ups are less common. I believe this is mandatory as we progress to the next step in the growth of the Scale-Up nation. JFrog has already proved it has mastered the task through successful completion of six acquisitions, boosting its growth as it builds a world of liquid software alongside a solid business. I am confident that we will start to see more and more of these types of acquisitions and Qumra’s deep network and reach, will ensure that we will continue to play a key role in both parts of the equation.

I am grateful to have partnered with our two portfolio companies on their journey: JFrog and Vdoo, which will now become one powerful company that unifies development and security teams with a holistic security approach. The united company is shooting high with a binary-focused solution to secure software distribution Together, they can finally deliver on the promise of DevSecOps, infusing real security into DevOps processes and providing a solution that empowers organizations with both agility and security.”

Go JFrog Security!