Defense tech co Kela makes first acquisition

Defense startup Kela Technologies is making its first acquisition, and is buying Pelanor, a small company that deals in monitoring cloud activity and managing cloud computing costs in a civilian context. The acquisition price has not been disclosed, but is estimated to be in the $20-30 million dollar range, in a deal combining shares and cash.

The acquisition was announced to the companies’ employees last Thursday, and is reported here for the first time. Besides Pelanor’s fifteen staff and three founders, its main investor, TLV Partners, will receive a fairly swift return on the seed round it led of a few million dollars.

Pelanor was founded by Matan Mates (CEO), Ido Kotler (CPO), and Yotam Tanay (CTO), all of whom served in the IDF’s 8200 signals intelligence unit. The company has developed an AI-based platform that provides real-time visibility on all cloud costs, translates this into business insights, analyzes the sources of changes, identifies exceptional items, and optimizes resources automatically.

Pelanor has several customers, but the field in which it operates is crowded – it includes Israeli companies such as FinOut and ScaleOps – and the company arrived at a crossroads at which it had to decide whether to raise further capital or be sold. It was apparently courted by larger technology companies than Kela, among them some very well-known Israeli unicorns.

Kela is a developer of an AI-based system for management of defense systems. Before the acquisition, it employed 65 people who served in special technological units in the IDF and AI experts. It saw a perfect match in Pelanor’s employees and know-how. Matan Mates previously led innovation and AI at SentinelOne, and before that served for five years in the 8200 unit in advanced technology roles; Ido Kotler is described as a mathematical genius, having completed a first degree in mathematics at age 13 and a second degree in number theory at 17, and he was also a European debating champion. Before co-founding Pelanor, Kotler led new product development at SentinelOne, following military service in unit 8200, during which he was decorated for his contribution to the country’s security.

Yotam Tanay is an experienced technology company manager, with broad experience in leading teams and in software engineering. He formerly served in senior engineering positions in semiconductor company NextSilicon.

Kela was founded by Alon Dror, formerly a department head at Mafat (Ministry of Defense Directorate of Defense Research & Development) and an Israel Security Prize laureate; Hamutal Meridor, who was a promising partner at venture capital firm Vintage and before that manager of the Israeli branch of US AI company Palantir; Jason Manne; and Omer Bar-Ilan.

The company has raised $100 million to date from Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital, and In-Q-Tel. Its last fund-raising round was at an estimated valuation of $200 million.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on September 28, 2025.

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