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More to the point, there actually is evidence of a connection to the Israeli government, inasmuch as "Candiru" was financed by the same people behind NSO, "Foun

More to the point, there actually is evidence of a connection to the Israeli government, inasmuch as "Candiru" was financed by the same people behind NSO, "Founders Group", and both of these entities have very clear ties to Mossad: https://www.dimse.info/candiru/ https://www.dimse.info/candiru/ "TheMarker Claims that NSO is also a customer of Candiru as it is often seen contacting the surreptitious firm for some espionage-related projects. Two industry sources said the main Candiru financial backer was Founders Group, cofounded by one of the three men who set up NSO, Omri Lavie." And then, there is its Board of Directors: "As surveillance industry sources also told Forbes, one of the lead investors is Founders Group managing partner Isaac Zack. According to Pitchbook, Zack is also a board member at wireless charging startup Humavox and at Sepio Systems. The latter is a cybersecurity company, focused on doing the exact opposite of Candiru: protecting hardware from being turned into silent surveillance devices. Its board also includes Tamir Pardo, the former head of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency." https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/10/03/meet-candiru-the-super-stealth-cyber-mercenaries-hacking-apple-and-microsoft-pcs-for-profit/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/10/03/meet-...

alephnerd 2y ago
Almost all startups in Israel are cybersecurity oriented. There is almost no dealflow for a non-Security startup in the Israeli market because Israeli VCs demand a short exit window, Cybersecurity startups are very M&A friendly, and Israeli VCs don't have as much experience with GTMing B2C and B2B2C compared to Enterprise. Cybersecurity is the right mix of easy but niche (only Israel, CEE, India have a thriving low level development scene because American universities increasingly moved OS and Kernel classes into "Computer Engineering" instead of "Computer Science"), easy exits (there are enough F1000 cybersecurity and enterprise companies to sell a startup to), large dealsize (cybersecurity/infra ACV tends to be mid-to-high 5 figures), and pre-existing network (the Israeli and Indian scenes started thanks to Palo Alto Network's successful IPO, and the founding team at PANW became VCs funding similar startups across Israel and India since the mid-2000s). Also, Israel is TINY (both in area and population). Everyone is at most 3 degrees of separation from Netanyahu or any other dignitary in the country - it's barely 9 million people.
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  I wonder how easily Carbyne got funding but I suppose there is a homeland security/emergency management angle.

alephnerd 2y ago

Almost all startups in Israel are cybersecurity oriented. There is almost no dealflow for a non-Security startup in the Israeli market because Israeli VCs demand a short exit window, Cybersecurity startups are very M&A friendly, and Israeli VCs don't have as much experience with GTMing B2C and B2B2C compared to Enterprise. Cybersecurity is the right mix of easy but niche (only Israel, CEE, India have a thriving low level development scene because American universities increasingly moved OS and Kernel classes into "Computer Engineering" instead of "Computer Science"), easy exits (there are enough F1000 cybersecurity and enterprise companies to sell a startup to), large dealsize (cybersecurity/infra ACV tends to be mid-to-high 5 figures), and pre-existing network (the Israeli and Indian scenes started thanks to Palo Alto Network's successful IPO, and the founding team at PANW became VCs funding similar startups across Israel and India since the mid-2000s). Also, Israel is TINY (both in area and population). Everyone is at most 3 degrees of separation from Netanyahu or any other dignitary in the country - it's barely 9 million people.

selimthegrim 2y ago
I wonder how easily Carbyne got funding but I suppose there is a homeland security/emergency management angle.