US telecommunications company At&T has bought 15% of the shares in Israeli startup DriveNets from the existing shareholders – among them venture capital firms Pitango and Bessemer Venture Partners, Harel, and Poalim Equity – in one of the largest secondary rounds carried out in Israel.
The value of the deal is estimated at $750-800 million, giving the network infrastructure company founded by Ido Susan and Hillel Kobrinsky a valuation of $5 billion, which compares with a valuation of $3.1 billion in its last fund raising round of $3.1 billion.
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The deal represents a significant first exit for the investors, who have waited a whole decade for such an opportunity in a company that is apparently still a long way from an IPO or a sale. To date, DriveNets, which employs some 500 people, has raised almost $600 million (not including the secondary round), in rounds led by Bessemer, Pitango, and US funds D1 Capital Partners and D2 Investments.
A secondary round is one in which shares change hands without the company itself receiving any cash. The current deal apparently indicates AT&T’s desire to come in as a strategic partner of the company, and the desire of the existing investors to make at least a partial exit.
DriveNets has developed communications routers based on chips cheaper than those of Nvidia, facilitating data transfer and AI processing at a high level of reliability competitive with that of Cisco and of Mellanox, which was acquired by Nvidia.
DriveNets declined to comment on the report.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on October 8, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.
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