Via completes IPO with more Israeli flotations likely to follow

Israeli smart public transport and mobility solutions company Via Transportation (NYSE: VIA) ended its first day trading on Wall Street on Friday with its share price up 7.63% at $49.51, giving a market cap of $3.937 billion. Via had waited four years since it first filed a prospectus for an IPO but since the end of 2021 the window for flotations closed after the US Federal Reserve began to raise interest rates and planned tech IPOs were suspended for several years.

Now the capital market has reopened for IPOs in anticipation of lower interest rates, and Via has held its flotation after reporting growing revenue and striving for profitability, even if it is still losing many millions of dollars per quarter. In the wake of Via other Israeli companies are warming up on the touchline and soon expected to enter the capital market fray.

Anticipated growth in the US economy is having its effect

“Globes” lists the Israeli companies considering an IPO. Auto-tech fintech company Lendbuzz has already filed a prospectus for a Nasdaq IPO at an estimated valuation of $1.5 billion. Others include cybersecurity company Armis, which has annual revenue exceeding $300 million, and is raising funds led by Thoma Bravo at a valuation of $5 billion, ahead of an IPO and VAST Data, one of Nvidia’s key partners in the field of AI data storage management and based in Tel Aviv is also considering an IPO, which could be one of the largest in the industry, at an estimated valuation exceeding $32 billion.

Two competing companies – US company Navan and Spanish company Travelperk, both founded by Israeli entrepreneurs abroad, could both soon be listed on Wall Street. While Navan could seek a valuation of $7-8 billion, Travelperk will likely seek a valuation of $3 billion. An Israeli company, which is already profitable and has annual revenue of $500 million, is adtech company Appsflyer, which is considering proposals for an IPO or acquisition by a private equity fund. However, the likelihood is to go for an acquisition.

Valuations of companies holding an IPO is perhaps the key to explaining why the capital market gates have opened for some Israeli companies that are now striving to list on Wall Street. Expectations of at least two consecutive interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve, stabilizing inflation and anticipated growth in the US economy allow investors to bet on newly listed companies, which can receive a higher valuation than in previous years. All of this has led companies such as Israel’s Via and online trading platform eToro, which raised $620 million at a company valuation of $4.3 billion in May, Sweden’s Klarna and US company Netskope to hold IPOs, as well as several other Israelis considering the move.

RELATED ARTICLES

The service was unclear to the market

Back to Via. The company has developed a mobility management system for small public transport vehicles such as service taxis, minibuses and buses, which collect passengers from different places on demand. Via’s algorithm can shorten routes and navigate cities according to pick-up and drop-off points that can change dynamically in real time. The company itself operated such service taxis throughout New York and Chicago but due to lack of profitability preferred to provide software to operate similar services for schools and local authorities in US suburbs.

Customers today are mostly local authorities in the US, a market that is difficult to penetrate, but from the moment it became dominant, its position in it is guaranteed for years, although its growth depends largely on municipal considerations that are not always predictable.

Chemi Peres, cofounder of Pitango Fund, one Via’s first investors talks about the challenges it faced. He recalls, “Via arrived 12 years ago with a concept that was not clear to many at the time: the possibility of ordering a seat on public transport rather than a car as is done with Uber or Lyft. So it was necessary to introduce this concept to the market. Ultimately, it was well received by local authorities that operate public transport to allow low-income people greater accessibility to work without creating congestion on the roads; by educational authorities that transport students to and from school; and by companies that want to save on maintaining vehicle fleets and provide employees with a green and economic way to get to work.”

In recent Israeli terms, Via’s first day market cap of nearly $4 billion is not a major exit for a company founded 12 years ago. Younger cybersecurity companies like Cyara, Island, and Wiz achieved higher valuations in a shorter time on the private market ($6 billion, $5 billion, and $32 billion, respectively). The pivot – Via’s shift in strategic focus from the consumer transport market to the local authorities market took its toll. According to PitchBook, between 2021 and 2023 the company had to raise almost $250 million more, but its value barely increased from $2.93 billion to $3.03 billion. In total, Via raised close to $900 million in private investments up until the IPO, while its valuation still only about $1 billion higher than it was four years ago, despite showing impressive revenue growth and a continued decline in losses.

Therefore, the biggest beneficiaries of Via’s IPO are mainly the company’s early investors, led by Pitango and the 83North fund, which led the first investment in Via in 2014 along with other investors for $10 million, when the company’s stock was trading at just $1.97, according to PitchBook. 83North has since participated in all of the company’s financing rounds, so that it now holds 8.3% of Via’s stock, valued at $327 million.

Pitango was the second fund to lead early-stage funding rounds in Via, and is the other big beneficiary of the Israeli IPO. Partners Hemi Peres and Isaac Hillel led the company’s second and third rounds of funding along with a group of investors totaling $130 million, helping to boost Via’s value 10-fold from $36.5 million to $375 million. Pitango currently holds a 6.5% stake in Via, worth $267 million, after investing tens of millions of dollars from several of its funds.

The biggest shareholder in Via is US-based Exor Ventures, whose representative on Via’s board of directors is Israeli Noam Ohana, and currently holds 18.7% of the company’s shares worth $736 million. Hanaco Ventures, which recently announced that it will not raise additional funds, will also see a return on its investment, having participated in a $250 million fundraising round when Via was valued at $1 billion in 2017. Funds recording a lower return on their investment are Mori Arkin, who invested at a valuation of $2 billion, the Vertex Fund, which invested on the eve of the failed attempt to go public in 2021, when the company’s value was nearly $3 billion, and Eyal Ofer’s O.G. Venture Partners, which invested when the company was worth $3.5 billion.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on September 14, 2025.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.