Company sunday sky Veteran Sunday Sky, a developer of custom video creation software, planned an IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange earlier this year that would raise $70-100 million at a valuation of NIS 1 billion (about $280). million). The offer will provide liquidity to Sunday Sky shareholders, some of whom, like Viola Ventures Fund, invested in the company as early as 2008, a year after its launch. Sunday Sky was already in the process of writing a prospectus.

But since then the momentum in the markets has completely changed for tech companies, and on Sunday Sky had to reshape a route. Instead of an IPO, the company announced today (Monday) that it is selling its control to American private equity fund Clearhaven Partners. Meanwhile, Sunday Sky announced 24 layoffs in Japan, Israel and the United States, representing 13% of its workforce, as part of a reorganization following the changing global economic environment.

An announcement by Sunday Sky about the sale of control was vague, with company executives choosing not to provide further details or clarifications. According to the announcement, the acquired fund will invest more than 100 million dollars in Sunday Sky – part of the amount will go into the pockets of existing shareholders, who will sell control (50% of the shares), part will flow into investments. In the company. Each case involved a deal that valued Sunday Sky at a lower value than it was expected to receive in an IPO.

Sunday Sky was founded in 2007 by Shmulik Weller, who serves as the company’s president and vice president of product, and Yaniv Aksan, who serves as vice president of technology. The company’s CEO is American Jim Dixo, who has been in office since 2017. The company has raised $75 million so far. Viola, Comcast Ventures, Vintage and NTT DOCOMO have also invested, according to the IVC database. In that.

Sunday Sky allows companies to create customized videos for customers that include the customer’s personal details, from his name to information about his usage patterns. For example, an annual report sent to customers by an insurance company can be accessed through a video in a fixed format, in which the personal details of each customer are embedded. Similarly, online sellers can create a variable video for different products they sell based on ready-made templates, a product launched by Sunday Sky last year.

According to details released in late 2021, ahead of a planned IPO, Sunday Sky is set to end the year with annual recurring revenue (ARR) of more than $40 million. The Sunday Sky business model is currently built around a two-year subscription license for the software.

Sunday Sky’s smaller competitor in the custom video sector is a company Idomo (Idomoo), also Israeli. Idomo was issued on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange a year ago at a value of $344 million, but has since been slashed by 80% and is trading at just NIS 70 million. Although Idomo had a lower annualized revenue rate than Sunday Sky at $13.1 million in 2021, its decline in value illustrates the shrinking multiples available to companies in the sector.