IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced the acquisition of Unicorn Solutions Inc., a company registered in New York and with an R&D center in Jerusalem. Sources inform ''Globes'' that the price tag was $10 million.
In its press release, IBM said Unicorn’s 28 employees at its Jerusalem R&D center would join IBM R&D laboratory in Israel.
Founded by CEO Dr. Zvi Schreiber in 2001, Unicorn has raised $12 million to date. Schreiber previously founded Tradeum, which was sold to Verticalnet Inc. (Nasdaq:VERT) in 2000 for $500 million.
The acquisition of Unicorn is IBM’s second acquisition in Israel this year, following the acquisition of iPhrase, whose employees also joined the IBM Haifa Research Laboratory in Israel.
Unicorn develops software for metadata management. Metadata is information that is used to describe the characteristics of data, such as when and by whom it was created, accessed, modified, as well as how it is formatted. Companies use metadata to gain a better understanding of how they can most effectively use data in their business processes..
IBM Haifa Research Laboratory general manager Dr. Michael Rodeh said, “This step is further proof of IBM’s high appreciation for R&D conducted in Israel.”
Gartner Inc. included Unicorn in the “visionary quadrant” in its “Magic Quadrant”. “Red Herring” included the company in its 100 leading start-ups in 2005.
Unicorn’s technology will improve IBM’s information management solutions basket, and IBM will include Unicorn’s solutions in its software products. Unicorn is IBM’s 18th acquisition in Israel since 2001.
Jerusalem Global Ventures (JGV) is the only Israeli venture capital fund that invested in Unicorn. JGV founding partner Shlomo Kalish said today, “The company operates in the area of enterprise information consolidation. It was ahead of its time, so it struggled to make sales during the hard years of the high-tech crisis. We’re pleased that IBM, the global leader in enterprise solutions, will adopt Unicorn’s solutions. In addition, all the company’s employees will stay in Israel and work for IBM.”
Unicorn said it could not comment on the report.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on May 9, 2006
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2006