Wix Buys Israeli Reservist’s Website and App-Building Startup for $80 Million

Maor Shlomo, who built his first startup at the age of 26, acquired his technical skills while serving in an IDF Intelligence unit and developed Base44 after completing his military service as a reservist.

By Shula Rosen

A serial solo entrepreneur who previously made the Forbes Under 30 list sold his application and website-building startup to Wix for $80 million.

Maor Shlomo, who built his first startup at the age of 26, acquired his technical skills while serving in an IDF intelligence unit and developed Base44 after completing his military service as a reservist.

Base44 utilizes artificial intelligence to make building applications and websites accessible to everyone, including those with little technical experience.

The concept is similar to that of its parent company, Wix, which was founded by Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami and Giora Kaplan in Tel Aviv to allow anyone to easily build a website.

Shlomo and his six employees can now reap the rewards of the $80 million sale of the startup to Wix, just six months after Base44 was established.

“This acquisition is a significant milestone in Wix’s commitment to changing how people create on the web,” Wix CEO and co-founder Avishai Abrahami told Forbes upon announcing the sale deal.

“Maor and his team at Base44 bring with them breakthrough technology, impressive market penetration and visionary leadership – which naturally connect to our vision to enable every user, at any knowledge level, to express their intent – while smart agents handle the actual execution,” Abrahami said.

Shlomo also welcomed the acquisition as a way to make Base44’s technology accessible to a broader market than it might have been as a standalone company.

“Wix is probably the only company that can allow us to reach the scale and distribution we aspire to without harming our development pace and perhaps even accelerating it,” Shlomo said.”

“Our market is enormous, and it has the potential to replace entire software categories simply because the system allows people to create software themselves instead of purchasing it,” said the CEO and founder of Base44, which is expected to operate as an independent segment within Wix.

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