“Exactly the right price”

Check, which developed a personal financial management app with 10 million users, had a relatively quick and successful exit. It raised just $47 million across three rounds before being sold seven years after its founding.

Next Insurance, by contrast, raised $1.2 billion over eight funding rounds, and its founders saw significant dilution of their stakes. The acquiring company, Munich Re, began investing after the Seed round and by the time of the acquisition held nearly a third of the company’s shares. So while the sale price of Next was far higher, it’s possible that the amounts ultimately received by the founders in both exits aren’t very different—likely in the tens of millions of dollars in each case.

You can look at an exit in terms of who benefits, but it’s also important to consider the short-term versus long-term implications. In the short term, everyone’s happy and profits—but the bigger question is what this means for Israel and its high-tech industry.

“If I had to choose between being the founder of a $100 billion company or starting the next ten Nexts and making less money, I’d choose the second option.”

After the sale of Check, did you have any regrets?

“We were always okay with it. In hindsight, we went on to build a bigger company. When we founded Next, we built it with an IPO in mind—that’s how it should be. Anyone planning to be acquired from day one has the wrong strategy. That said, a compelling offer can always come along, and that’s just how the market works. Munich Re, which acquired us, is also our reinsurer and one of our largest shareholders. You could say they know us better than we know ourselves. They understand the business and recognize that this is a real company that’s going to grow—without inflated price-to-revenue multiples.

“There’s been a lot of talk about insurtech ‘selling a shekel for 80 agorot,’ selling dreams. But the past year has shown it’s too soon to write off the sector. Lemonade, another Israeli insurtech company listed on Wall Street, is trading at a $2 billion valuation and is showing improved performance. In the early days, the market rewarded crazy growth at all costs. That’s what everyone pursued, because otherwise people would say you don’t understand the market. After the correction, the fact that we knew how to adapt is something we’re proud of.”

When Huri talks about how, unlike the Wiz-Google deal, the Next Insurance acquisition didn’t involve “crazy multiples,” he’s absolutely right. To understand that, we go back to March 31, 2021, when Next announced a massive $250 million fundraising round at a peak valuation of $4 billion—a level it hasn’t returned to since.

Although this current deal is among the largest tech exits in Israeli history, it still represents a 35% drop from that previous valuation. At the time, in an interview with Calcalist, Huri and his co-founder Nissim Tapiro said:

“We don’t want to be acquired; we want to build a large, independent company. Some of our investors are insurance companies, and that’s a good thing.”

Also at the time, they said something almost prophetic:

“From day one, the insurance industry embraced us—including companies that invested in us, like Munich Re—because they understood that the insurtech revolution is inevitable. And they also understood that they wouldn’t be able to lead it themselves, because it’s a matter of DNA. It took us a while to fully internalize that, but even if a large insurance company hires 600 developers to do something digital, it can’t transform into a startup. If someone manages to crack that—good for them.”

Ultimately, Munich Re did crack it by writing a check to expand its presence in the U.S. market through Next Insurance. By 2024, Next had reached an annual revenue run rate of $500 million and, according to the buyer, had been growing at 25–30% annually in recent years.

Could you have gotten a higher valuation from a buyer less familiar with the company than Munich Re?

“This is exactly the price it should be.”

So how do you reconcile that with the $4 billion valuation you raised at in 2021?

“Sure, we could’ve gotten a higher valuation, but we didn’t want to. It’s not smart to maximize valuation during fundraising because you’ll need to deliver on that later. There’s a dynamic to how things evolve. This deal is a great price for everyone involved.”

“We wanted to avoid an IPO too early”

Take Lemonade, for example. It went public and, after all the ups and downs, is now trading at roughly the same valuation as Next’s sale price. You could have done an IPO in 2021 with the rest of the market and maybe hit a $10 billion valuation.

“At that point, we weren’t ready for an IPO, and we deliberately wanted to avoid that kind of premature move. From day one at Next, we defined our goal as building a profitable, predictable business—and in 2021, we weren’t there yet. Sure, when Lemonade hit $11 billion during the hype, people told us we were making a mistake. But being an entrepreneur also means standing by your principles. We said: Maybe we’re wrong, but if we don’t believe in it, we’re not going to do it. We could have gone public, but it didn’t align with our vision. The first two years on Wall Street are all about building investor trust, and we weren’t ready. We don’t regret it.”

Today, Huri describes his role at the Team8 fund—offered to him by former Bank Leumi CEO Rakefet Russak-Aminoach and eToro co-founder Ronen Assia, who is now preparing for an IPO—as “like being a kid in a candy store.”

“What excites me most is working from minus one to zero,” Huri explains. “Everyone talks about going from zero to one, but what I’m doing now is even more interesting. That early ideation stage—that’s how we thought about Next after selling Check. After we left Intuit, Guy [Goldstein, CEO of Next], Nissim, and I spent four months thinking deeply about our next venture. That kind of thoughtful process is very special for someone who’s already had one exit. Here at Team8, we work with first-time founders and teach them how to break down problems, form validation theses, and identify the right solution.”

“AI is an earthquake in the field of programming”

Is there still room for new startups in the fintech industry? In recent years, the sector has been disappointing, raising questions about whether it still has a reason to exist in a world where interest rates are no longer at zero.

“Fintech, like cyber, is a broad term—and there are still many opportunities to build new companies. But unlike cyber, which tends to scale quickly, fintech behaves differently: there’s usually a long gap between the adoption of a solution and a surge in revenue. But when it works, it explodes and reaches higher valuation levels. And while cyber gets more of the spotlight, Israel is actually a powerhouse in fintech. We have globally significant companies here—from Lemonade and Tipalti to eToro and Rapyd.

“At the startup level, I’m currently exploring the world of employee health insurance for organizations. The Next deal has reignited my passion to build new fintech companies, because it proves that it’s possible to create a giant in this space out of Israel. What I’d love to see are new companies started by alumni of Next—just as many companies emerged from Mercury, where Guy and I met. Mercury, which was sold to HP for $4.5 billion in 2006, is still one of the biggest exits in Israeli tech history. It produced founders of companies like Navon, Zuz, 8fig, HiBob, and many more. The entrepreneurial atmosphere there was incredible—something truly special was built.”

How does Israel manage to produce so many successful fintech and insurtech companies, despite not having an obvious comparative advantage?

“There’s another glass ceiling that Next shattered—and it doesn’t get talked about enough: it was the biggest-ever acquisition of a company selling directly to small businesses. Also underappreciated is Israel’s strength in online marketing. We have some of the best teams in the world working with Google and Meta platforms. That’s because Israeli companies are built for export from day one, and marketing happens remotely. Just look at Wix, Monday, or Resident, which was sold for $1 billion—all are examples of that model. Many of their people came from companies like 888 and Playtika, which helped foster an outstanding generation of performance marketers.

“At Next, we scaled from zero to a $2 billion valuation without agents or partnerships—just with 15 performance marketing professionals. Israel also has world-class data talent, which is a key foundation for fintech. Altogether, this forms a compelling ecosystem.

“Now with ChatGPT and similar tools, you can optimize the answers and create entirely new marketing solutions. It’s a new world—and fertile ground for Israeli innovation,” says Huri. “And when we talk about AI, we need to talk about the earthquake it’s causing in the field of programming. Today, someone with no coding experience can build a product just by writing a prompt. Where it used to take $5–8 million to build a product in the early stages, now you can go from seed to Series A with just $2 million and three strong entrepreneurs.

“This is going to change the way we think about startup building. More ventures will be possible, because you can test many directions in a single day, while saving countless developer hours. You’ll be able to make more mistakes early on—before investing heavily in a product—which will increase a startup’s chances of success. It’s a singular leap forward.”

“You have to fall in love with the problem, not the solution”

Given the current environment, are there still new entrepreneurs? Is there enough motivation to start companies?

“This past year I met with 400 entrepreneurs—and it’s amazing. I know it sounds strange, but I would have been willing to pay out of my own pocket just to keep doing what I do at Team8. I had no idea I’d be so passionate about it. There are a lot of great ideas and strong founders. The harder things get here, the more resilient we become—it’s the start of a new Israeli DNA.”

From your experience as a serial entrepreneur, what do you look for in a new venture? What are your criteria?

“You have to fall in love with the problem—not the solution—because the solution is fluid. The problem needs to be big and painful, and you need to understand that you’ll be working on it for many years. One of the biggest mistakes we made at Check was focusing only on the solution. That’s why Intuit still uses our technology today, but not the products themselves—despite the eight pivots we made.

“You also have to be a little crazy—like a salmon swimming upstream. Every morning you wake up and feel like the world is against you, like gravity is reversed. Everyone is telling you why it won’t work. But at the same time, you need to surround yourself with people who aren’t afraid to speak their minds, and you have to be open enough to listen. In the end, you need to be both stubborn and receptive—it’s a paradox, but it’s the closest thing to reality.”

What changed for you between Check and Next Insurance that made the latter more successful?

“We were more mature. At Check, we made a lot of mistakes. At Next, we made different mistakes—but at least we didn’t repeat the old ones. We understood from day one that we needed to focus on the business model. First and foremost, think about the business—and that will lead you to the right technology, not the other way around.”

“The long term is the only thing that interests me”

Did your heart attack change you as a manager or entrepreneur?

“It’s not like I stopped working hard—someone once said, and rightly so, that my gearbox only has fifth gear. But I try to stress less. People worry about missiles or terrorists, but they don’t realize that the real ticking bomb might be inside your own body. My carotid artery was 99% blocked.”

Throughout this interview you’ve been surprisingly optimistic. Are you not concerned about the situation in Israel or the departure of tech workers?

“As an entrepreneur, you tend to think strategically—not just about the moment. I fully understand the complexity of the current situation. But in the long term—which is the only thing that really interests me—as long as we continue to execute and make progress, everything will move forward. The next Wiz and the next Next will be built.”

But in the end, both of those companies are registered in the US.

“That doesn’t matter—their contribution to Israel’s economy is still clear. We decide on a case-by-case basis whether to register a company in the US or in Israel. It’s usually based on the nature of the business. Next was registered in the US purely for operational reasons—to serve the American market more effectively.”

And if democracy collapses—who will invest in the next Next Insurance?

“I’m not involved in politics, and my opinion isn’t what matters. What does matter is that everyone focuses on doing what they do best to shape Israel’s future. I’m an über-optimist because I believe these problems will be solved—and I’d rather put my energy into actions that will pay off in the long run.”