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Employees expected to pocket several millions of dollars in bonuses
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Salesforce buys Israel's Navajo for $30M

Following grand exit, software giant to open development center in Tel Aviv. Main profits go to JVP, Navajo founders Dan Gross, Dr. David Movshovitz and Doron Abram

Israeli startup Navajo Systems, developer of real-time data security system for cloud computing, has been acquired by US software giant Salesforce for some $30 million.

 

The deal's value constitutes a return of more than 10 times the company's seed investment made less than two years ago by Jerusalem based venture capital fund JVP.

 

Salesforce has yet to issue an official statement of the acquisition; however, company spokesperson confirmed the move in an interview to eWEEK website and said more details were to come in the company's meeting next week in San Francisco.

 

Navajo's website has been removed and in its place is the company's announcement saying that "Navajo Systems has decided to pursue a different strategy". Navajo and JVP chose not to respond to Calcalist's queries in the issue.

 

Following the acquisition, Salesforce will establish a development center in Tel Aviv, joining other companies that chose Israel as a location for their cloud computing R&D centers, such as HP, EMC, Microsoft and VMware.

 

The main profits from the deal are expected to go to Erel Margalit's JVP and Navajo's founders - Dan Gross, Dr. David Movshovitz and Doron Abram. Navajo's 20 employees are also expected to pocket several millions of dollars in bonuses from the sale deal and from their continued employment by Salesforce.

 

Calcalist has learned that negotiations between Navajo Systems and Salesforce were impeded by JVP's reluctance to enter the deal on the grounds that it deemed the ROI too low.

 

JVP maintained that in a year or two the company could have been sold for hundreds of millions of dollars; however, the founders chose to grab the opportunity to sell to the world's largest cloud computing software service provider.

 

Click here to read this report in Hebrew

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 08.28.11, 15:37
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