Chinese computer giant Lenovo plans to announce acquisition of veteran Israeli enterprise storage startup infinidatwas founded by Moshe Yanai and includes CPO Shahar Baroul among its senior executives.
This is Lenovo’s first major acquisition in Israel, and the Chinese company plans to turn it into an Israeli development center specializing in data management for large enterprises.
Related articles
Israeli data storage company Infinidat raises $95 million
Market watchers estimate that Lenovo will pay hundreds of millions of dollars for Infinidat, which estimates annual revenue of between $200 million and $300 million from sales of servers and server management systems. The company has been profitable in terms of EBITDA for the past four years.
The big winners from this deal are those who invested in Infinidat’s previous funding round in 2020, as several shareholders sold their shares at a loss upfront. Investors in the round included Gilad Chaney’s ION Fund and the Bronfman family’s Claridge Fund. The round was led by Goldman Sachs and TPG, according to VC database PitchBook. However, the round was disappointing for many Infinidad employees, who claimed that their options and stock holdings had been diluted, and some of them sued the company. As far as is known, parts of the lawsuit are still ongoing.
The round comes after the company had been operating in the red for years and Moshe Yanay, who founded the company in 2011, was fired as chairman. Coinciding with the funding round, 70% of the company’s employees were laid off. A year later, former SanDisk chief Shahar Baoor was appointed CEO of Infinidat and implemented a recovery program.
Yanai continues to own a stake in the company, and the sale is one in a series of successes for him. He has been in charge of sales for several Israeli storage companies that have attracted international giants to Israel. He sold companies to IBM and EMC and now he brings Lenovo here.
Published by Globes, Israel Business News – en.globes.co.il – on January 16, 2025.
© Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., Copyright 2025.
