Visa signed a definitive agreement today to acquire Tel Aviv-based BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash. The sellers are funds advised by Permira and other shareholders.
To put the number in scale: it is larger than Motorola's $1.5 billion acquisition of D-Fend Solutions, cited as one of the notable Israeli deals of 2026. It is also far below the peaks of the last two years - Wiz sold to Alphabet for $32 billion and CyberArk to Palo Alto for $25 billion. A large deal, then, not a record one.
But it is interesting less for the headline number than for two others: what this company was worth two years ago, and what happened inside it since.
What BioCatch actually does
BioCatch is a fraud intelligence company. It does not check who you are - it checks how you behave.
The system analyses thousands of signals in real time while a user is inside a digital banking session: typing patterns, touch gestures, the way a device is held and moved, network signals and device characteristics. From those it builds a behavioural profile, and identifies when the person in front of the screen is not the account holder - or is the account holder, but acting under manipulation.
That is the substantive difference between BioCatch and ordinary identity verification. A password, a one-time code or a fingerprint check who logged in. BioCatch checks what happens after they logged in. That is what makes it relevant to the fastest-growing category of fraud: not breaking into an account, but persuading the account holder to move the money themselves.
Per Visa's release, the system analyses 19 billion sessions per month.
Scale, per Visa's release
1.8 billion devices protected. 760 million users. More than 350 banking clients across 21 countries, including more than 100 of the largest banks in the world.
The step-up: $1.3 billion, then $2.4 billion
This is where the real story sits.
BioCatch was founded in 2011 and has raised roughly $324 million over its life. In 2023 it was valued at about $1 billion. In May 2024, Permira acquired a majority position at a $1.3 billion enterprise valuation, in a secondary transaction that bought out primarily the holdings of Bain Capital Tech Opportunities and Maverick Ventures.
Today, roughly 27 months later, Visa is paying $2.4 billion in cash for the whole company.
| May 2024 | August 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Valuation | $1.3 billion | $2.4 billion |
| Financial institution customers | 190+ | 350+ |
| Of the world's 100 largest banks | 30+ | 100+ |
This is not only multiple expansion. The number of financial institution customers nearly doubled, and the number of the world's largest banks running the system grew more than threefold. Penetration into the largest banks is what justifies the price - a customer of that kind enters slowly, after long evaluations, and stays for years.
One methodological note: the 2024 figure was an enterprise valuation in a secondary transaction, and today's figure is a cash purchase price for the entire company. These are not precisely the same measure - but the direction and the order of magnitude are clear.
Why Visa is buying, and why now
The answer sits in Visa's own most recent quarterly report.
In that report, published on 28 July, the other-revenue line jumped 45% to $1.5 billion. That line contains Visa's value-added services - fraud protection, advisory and data - and it is the only part of the business that does not depend on a per-transaction fee. We wrote at the time that this was the single most important figure in the report for the long-term mix.
This acquisition doubles down on exactly that line.
The logic is structural. Visa earns a fee on every transaction crossing its network, which exposes it to two pressures: regulatory pressure on the size of those fees, and account-to-account rails such as Pix in Brazil and UPI in India that move money without touching a card network at all. Services sold to banks on subscription, rather than per transaction, are exposed to neither.
The size of the problem Visa is aiming at
Per the company's release, account takeovers and scams cost the global economy more than $1 trillion annually. Andrew Torre, president of value-added services at Visa, noted in the release that AI is enabling these attacks "at unprecedented scale".
And this is the point worth holding on to: the same technology creating the problem is also being sold as its solution. As AI tools make fraud cheaper and easier to replicate at scale, demand for systems that detect it grows with it. BioCatch sits precisely at that junction.
Gadi Mazor, CEO of BioCatch, said in the release that "real-time insights into customer intent continue to grow increasingly essential for institutions to establish trust within digital banking sessions".
What is not in the release
Three things worth noticing precisely because they are absent:
First, there are no revenue figures. Visa did not publish BioCatch's revenue or its recurring revenue run-rate. Without that number there is no way to compute a multiple, and therefore no way to say whether $2.4 billion is a high or an ordinary price relative to the sector. Any multiple presented in this context is an estimate, not a datum.
Second, there is no EPS impact estimate. The release contains no statement on accretion or dilution, and none on the funding source.
And third, the timeline is long. The deal is expected to close by the end of Visa's fiscal second quarter of 2027 - roughly the first calendar quarter of 2027. A transaction of this size, between a global payments network and an infrastructure supplier to banks, will pass regulatory review in multiple jurisdictions, and until it closes nothing is final.
The disagreement in one line
Those who see a good deal point to the penetration into the largest banks, to 45% growth in the line this acquisition joins, and to a subscription model insulated from fee pressure. Those who are cautious point out that no revenue was disclosed and so there is no multiple, that the consideration is entirely cash, and that closing is about a year away with regulatory approvals in between.
My Angle
A personal opinion of Ilan Abramov - not advice, not a recommendation
What catches me here is not the amount. It is the direction.
Visa is a per-transaction fee business, and that model sits under two real pressures - regulation on the size of the fee, and instant transfer rails that bypass the card network entirely. When a company like that spends $2.4 billion in cash, it is worth noticing where it spends it. It did not buy volume. It bought a product sold to banks on a subscription.
And the Israeli side of this deserves its own mention. BioCatch went from about $1 billion in 2023, to $1.3 billion in May 2024, to $2.4 billion today - and that happened while its penetration into the world's largest banks grew from more than 30 to more than 100. That is not a pricing story. That is a selling story.
And what I still do not know: what the company earns. Without that number there is no way to say whether $2.4 billion is a good price or a full one, and I would rather say so up front.
Want the full breakdown of Visa's latest quarterly report, including that line that jumped 45%? Visa: A Beat on Both Lines, but Client Incentives Grew Faster Than Revenue
