Prytek invests $12 million in trade analysis platform TipRanks
Seven years after Yair Sarousi first installed TipRank’s solution in Bank Hapoalim, he returned as Prytek’s chairman to buy a big chunk of it
Meir Orbach | 17:16, 09.08.20
Singapore-based Prytek is investing $12 million in Israeli startup TipRanks Ltd. through a secondary purchase of stock from the company’s existing investors and founders, completing a $15 million stock purchase after investing $3 million in TipRanks in 2018.
Most of the stock in the deal was acquired from angel investors and the founders, as well as from the employees. Among the well-known angels who invested in the company is Elliot Spitzer, the former District Attorney for the State of New York, who remained on as an investor.
With this deal, Prytek’s chairman, Yair Seroussi is completing a circle having first started working with TipRanks during his tenure as the chairman of Bank Hapoalim, after which dozens of other banks and investment houses started using its solution.
Founded in 2012 by Gilad Gat (CTO) and Uri Gruenbaum (CEO), TipRanks developed a platform that provides analysis and ranking based on textual information published on news sites, analyst reviews, corporate reports and more. The company’s services are employed by a series of financial institutions including Santander, TD Ameritrade, Nasdaq Etrade and nearly all the banks and investment houses in Israel. TipRanks scans stocks that are traded on stock exchanges in the U.S., Canada, and starting this month, the U.K.
TipRanks has 1.5 million users who consume their services directly from the company website and more than 20 million via banks around the world. The company employs 50 people in its Tel Aviv office. Among its investors are Poalim Capital Markets (PCM) and Capital Moneta.
Prytek was founded by veteran entrepreneur Andrey Yashunsky, who manages it together with former Apax Partners executive Arnon Shiboleth. The company focuses on investment in the Fintech, Edutech, Cyber, and HR sectors and employs more than 300 people in nine centers around the world, with most of its activity taking place in Europe and Asia. So far Prytek has invested in 30 companies across the world. Among the Israeli companies it has invested in are Scanovate, OpenLegacy, Hopon, Ezbob, and HackerU.
"I am confident that the involvement of Prytek will accelerate our growth in markets which are not our core markets. In the two years we have worked together, TipRanks has leveraged Prytek's distribution channels, which has led to long term agreements with leading financial institutions in Eastern Europe," Gruenbaum said. “"Yair Seroussi was in fact the first person that opened the door for us to the world of banking and the world of B2B in general, before we met our focus was only the end customers. In 2013 Seroussi and the innovation team of Bank Hapoalim invited us to present them the service and after a while of studying our product and
performing a due diligence they decided to integrate us into the bank's trading platform and later on they also decided to invest in us through Poalim Capital Markets."