Israeli Startup Soluto Sold for $130 Million
Award winning startup, formerly led by Naftali Bennett, is purchased by Asurion Corporation
By: Omer Shachnai
Soluto, one of the best known Israeli startups, which has won numerous prizes and continues to receive appraisal, has been acquired by American company Asurion Corporation. According to CEO and founder Tomer Dvir, “All the workers will stay and we will continue to grow.” In the past, current Economy and Commerce Minister of Israel Naftali Bennet filled his position.
Anyway you look at it - it’s boom time for the Israeli high-tech industry.
2013 has been particularly good to Startup Nation; after Waze being acquired by Google, and Facebook's acquisition of Onavo, now Soluto has entered the realm. Soluto’s staff got wind that the company would be acquired for approximately $130 million; up to now, exact details of the purchase remain undisclosed.
Soluto, which is based in Tel Aviv, and employs 40 workers, will become Asurion’s development centre in Israel. For the American company, whose business is support for mobile devices, this is their first purchase in Israel.
Soluto, co-founded by Tomer Dvir and Ishay Green (which left last year for another startup), offers a successful and free-of-charge software which helps you optimize your computer's performance. Essentially, it analyses the applications loaded onto the PC's startup and how long they take to load. The application then suggests which processes are unnecessary, so you can get rid of them to expedite your computer's booting times.
With time the company changed direction, and now Soluto also allows to manage and solve PC and mobile issues from remote. In 2010 it gained worldwide recognition after winning the TechCrunch’s prestigious startup competition. The winning was documented in the Israeli reality TV series “Connected” (Mehubarim).
The biggest earners from the exit, are Tomer Dvir and Ishay Green, which are expected to get $13 million each. Other earners are the investors led by Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO. "This is just the beginning," said Dvir, "We are bringing one of the world’s largest technological companies to Israel, which will open a development centre and hire hundreds of more people in Tel Aviv.”
"They are counting on us, and if until now we worked with millions of users, from now on we will work with tens of millions… We are very excited, mostly because they love our service," he added. Asurion's CEO replied "their platform will help us solve technical issues in the quickest and most efficient way."


