Vertex profits on Midbar

Israeli fund Vertex Venture Capital, the majority shareholder in Midbar Tech, has realised its investment in the company. Macrovision Corporation has acquired the business for $25 million. Vertex invested $3 million in the company in 2000 with other investors TechnoPlus Ventures, TDA and Jafco.

Yoram Oron, founder and managing partner of Vertex Israel, who previously served as Midbar Tech’s chairman, said: “Vertex Israel endeavours to identify M&A opportunities for its portfolio companies and this is part of our policy to find the solution that is most suitable to the company. In this case, Macrovision and Midbar Tech made a perfect match.”

Midbar Tech’s Cactus Data Shield (CDS) proprietary technology was developed in-house by a multidisciplinary team of experts in the fields of information security, physics, mathematics, electronics, cryptography and algorithms. The company has secured top music companies as customers including Vivendi Universal, EMI, BMG and AOL Time Warner. There are over 50 million CDs worldwide protected by Midbar Tech’s CDS technology and the company’s CDS processor is installed in 23 manufacturing plants globally.

Macrovision specialises in DVD protection. Its acquisition of Midbar Tech will help the business to also become a leader in audio protection.