When you ask entrepreneurs who have founded promising startup companies ‘where did you meet?’, in the vast majority of cases the answer will either “in an elite technological unit”, or “on the benches of academia”. But the story of how Roee Margalit and Avidan Barak, the founding duo who established Rotate (formerly Armoz), the intriguing cyber startup – is entirely different. The two entrepreneurs met in Olympic swimming pools, training camps and international swimming competitions, when they competed against each other, head-to-head.
“We met at the age of 15 as professional swimmers. We spent a lot of time together in training and competitions abroad – with Avidan even being crowned Israeli champion in several categories”, they recount. From there, the path of both continues in the “classic route”, with each of them reaching a different technological unit. Margalit to 8200, where he served for 6 years; and Barak – to the Cyber Division of the Shin Bet, where he served as an academic officer after completing a bachelor’s degree in computer science in high school.
They hatched the plan to establish a joint technological venture immediately after their discharge during a shared trip to India. “From that moment, we supported each other’s careers to gain the experience needed to set up something independent. We always worked close to each other, even in the same building”, they recall the beginning of their shared path. The two start as the first employees in two startups that were successfully acquired: Roi at Bonobo.ai which was acquired in 2019 by Salesforce for some $50 million, and Avidan at BitDam, which was acquired in 2021 by the Datto corporation for a similar amount. “From there we decided it was time to set up something independent.”
Currently, Margalit (CEO) and Barak (CTO) jointly manage as co-founders the cyber startup Rotate, which focuses on cyber solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. Those “neglected” businesses that in the vast majority of cases cannot afford the same tight and expensive protective envelope that giant corporations enjoy, and as a result constitute an attractive target for hacker attacks performed on a daily basis.
According to the Israel Internet Association, about 50% of targeted cyber-attacks are focused against small and medium-sized businesses, including those that hold servers with vital and sensitive information. Rotate focuses precisely on this niche and offers solutions to security problems for them, and despite the niche market, the potential is not small and is estimated at several tens of billions of dollars a year.
Within Emergency Routine
According to the founders, so far, the company has managed to raise about $5 million from leading investment funds such as Upwest, Treasury and Torch, alongside the support of leading angels from companies like Palo Alto, Slack, Honeybook, Papaya Global, Lyft and Salesforce.
In addition to entrepreneurial activity, the two took an active part in establishing the ‘Tkuma’ project – a fundraising initiative from significant American donors in collaboration with Sam Zussman, Avner Mendelson, Rakefet Russak-Aminoach and F2 Capital – which managed to raise more than $4 million within a few weeks to support the Israeli home front. “The initiative continues to donate the funds to evacuated families to this day, and provides housing, education, food and mental support solutions to those affected in the home front”, say Margalit and Barak. “It was clear to us that we would use the startup’s resources – from the programmers and designers to set up the website, our operations leader who stepped up to operate behind the scenes, to the marketing team who helped with promotion”.
Since October 7th, they testify, they learned how to function within the emergency routine of the war, while also finding time for volunteer activities. “We understood our responsibility as managers, with employees who were recruited for reserve duty, or families who were evacuated and suffered losses, and we did everything in our power to give our employees a sense of stability and security”, they recount. “Alongside continuing work, it was important for us to offer employees options to help and volunteer for civilian efforts in Israel – as a way to maintain sanity and alleviate the helplessness we all felt, but also with the aim of making a real contribution to the community”.
