Fidelity sells NextVision shares for $426 million, Advent's reset at Sapiens, and high-tech pay falls

Noa Fidelity, one of the world's biggest asset managers, has cashed out most of its stake in the Israeli drone camera maker NextVision. The sale raised about $426 million.

Eli And the new owner of Sapiens says the insurance software company had a culture of failing to keep promises. About 800 people have already gone.

Noa Good morning, it's Tuesday, the sixth of October. I'm Noa.

Eli And I'm Eli.

Noa Today, Fidelity's big NextVision sale, a candid look inside Sapiens from its new owner, a sharp drop in high-tech pay, and Revolut hiring bankers in Israel.

Noa We start on the Tel Aviv market. CTech reports Fidelity sold 5.7 million NextVision shares for about 1.3 billion shekels, about $426 million, in a sale run by Goldman Sachs.

Eli The shares went at a discount to the market price, about seven percent according to CTech, six percent according to Bizportal. The stock had closed at 244 shekels, and CTech puts the sale price near 227.

Noa Fidelity held about 8.8 million shares, nearly ten percent of the company. It keeps about 3.1 million, under five percent, so it is no longer a substantial shareholder.

Eli Who bought? Bizportal says Israeli institutions and foreign investors both took part, and CTech puts the foreign share at about $328 million, most of the package.

Noa CTech adds that Fidelity built the position during 2025, buying on the exchange first, then putting $200 million into a capital raise in September.

Eli For context, Bizportal reports second-quarter revenue of about $88 million, up 138 percent on the year, with net profit of about $54 million.

Noa NextVision was founded in 2009 by Chen Golan and Boris Kipnis, and listed in Tel Aviv in 2021. Bizportal values it today at about 22.6 billion shekels.

Eli Next, a rare look inside a take-private. In an interview with Calcalist, Mike Ettling, executive chairman of Sapiens and a partner at Advent, says the insurance software company had, in his words, a poor culture of failing to keep promises.

Noa Advent bought Sapiens last December for $2.5 billion and took it off the Tel Aviv and US exchanges. Since then, CTech reports, it replaced most of the senior management, which had been almost entirely Israeli, and laid off about 800 people.

Eli Sapiens now has about 5,000 employees, most of them in India. Ettling says clients told him the product is good, and that the problem was Sapiens itself.

Noa Management has moved to the US and Europe. Paul Wheeler, named chief executive in June, takes over in the coming weeks. Ettling says the company looked at renaming itself and decided the Sapiens brand was worth keeping.

Eli On jobs, he would not commit. He said talking about headcount in the AI era is meaningless, and that every employee was given access to Claude a few months ago.

Noa He expects the Israeli team to stay about the same size, with more technical roles, and Tel Aviv to remain the company's main technology and product hub.

Eli He also says Sapiens now expects to pass $1 billion in revenue about two years earlier than its old plan, which aimed for 2031.

Noa And a turn in high-tech pay. CTech reports Central Bureau of Statistics figures showing the average wage in Israeli high-tech fell 6.2 percent in July, to 34,301 shekels a month, from 36,584 in June.

Eli That ends a run of double-digit growth. Year on year, pay was up just 2.3 percent, after 13.7 percent in May and 11.7 percent in June.

Noa High-tech jobs slipped to 397,300 in July, down 0.3 percent from a year earlier and a little below June.

Eli Bizportal links the numbers to a wider shift. It reports high-tech output still growing, up 8.2 percent in real terms, while headcount stalls, and says AI development tools let teams do more with the same staff.

Noa Bizportal also says junior roles are under the most pressure. Even after the drop, CTech notes, high-tech wages are still about 2.4 times the national average.

Eli One more. Revolut is staffing up for a bank in Israel. CTech reports it is hiring credit product managers, banking operations and collections managers, and compliance specialists.

Noa The openings cover credit, regulation, risk, collections, anti-money laundering and operations, as the company seeks what the Bank of Israel calls a lean bank licence.

Eli CTech says that licence would let Revolut offer deposit accounts and compete directly with the five banks that dominate Israeli banking. Calcalist first reported the talks in June last year.

Noa Revolut reports more than 80 million customers and over 13,000 employees worldwide. It has hired Uri Nathan, the former chief executive of Pepper, to lead the Israeli business, and has not announced a launch date.

Noa Now the quick round-up.

Eli Remitly has named Maya Roisman, formerly of Fiverr and Gett, general manager in Israel. CTech and Calcalist report she succeeds Guy Kashtan, who founded Rewire, the startup Remitly bought in 2022.

Noa Palo Alto Networks chief executive Nikesh Arora says he will not fire any of the company's roughly 6,000 engineers, even if AI makes them twice as effective. All other functions, he said at an ICONIQ event reported by CTech, are fair game.

Eli Geektime tells how an Israeli startup called Moonshot renamed itself Shuttlebase, after clients began confusing it with the Chinese AI company Moonshot AI. Its founders say it has raised $10 million.

Noa And Judah Taub, managing partner of Hetz Ventures, has published a book, Moonshots for Israel, with twelve proposals for the country, his publisher says.

Eli What to watch: next month's pay figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics.

Noa July's 6.2 percent drop ended months of double-digit growth, and Bizportal says output is still rising while hiring stalls. The next set of numbers will show whether that was one odd month or the new shape of the industry.

Eli Follow Israel Tech Daily wherever you get your podcasts, and read more at startuptofollow.com.

Noa See you tomorrow morning.