Gat is a veteran of the Israeli technology industry. He was one of the founders of Gilat Satellite Networks and a serial entrepreneur of several successful hi-tech companies, including Stixpay and Raisat. Thanks to his work and his extensive contribution to the industry, Gat was twice awarded the Israel Security Award
The developer and manufacturer of satellite communication chips SatixFy announced the passing of the company's founder and CEO, Yoel Gat. Gat passed away last Friday, April 8.
Gat is a veteran of the Israeli technology industry. He was one of the founders of Gilat Satellite Networks and a serial entrepreneur of several successful hi-tech companies, including Stixpay and Raisat. Thanks to his work and his extensive contribution to the industry, Gat was twice awarded the Israel Security Award.
"It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Yoel, a man of deep vision and the driving force behind the establishment and success of Stixpay," said Yoav Leibovitz, Co-Chairman and CFO of Stixpay. "Yoel was my partner for more than thirty years, and I will miss him as a personal friend and as a professional and business partner. Yoel was a true entrepreneur, founded and raised new companies, technologies and markets. We will continue to uphold his vision at Stixpay and lead the company to the next stage in its prosperity and growth. We send our sincere condolences to his wife Simona, their children, and their families. Our thoughts and prayers are with them at this time of sorrow."
A few months ago StixPay began a process of changing the management level, and announced the arrival of a new CEO on June 26, 2022. The company said that it is expected to announce the identity of the new CEO within a few weeks, upon the end of his commitment in his current position. Until his arrival, Leibovitz will serve as interim CEO.
"Yoel Gat was one of the world's greatest experts in satellite communication, but also a manager with supreme grace, so says Elio Yoav Leibovitch, CFO and chairman of Stixpay and now also interim CEO of the company following Gat's passing last Friday.
Leibovich and Gat worked together in the companies he founded - Gilat, Reisat and now Stixpay for over thirty years. ""I defined him as one in a billion. One of the most talented people on earth. He had a multidisciplinary integrative ability in all fields at the same time. He was an engineer with supreme grace but also understood business, understood what was happening in spreadsheets down to the last number."
"He was a combination of engineer, financier and businessman with exceptional interpersonal skills. He knew how to talk to everyone - from the most junior employee to the manager of the largest company in the world and how to bring out the best in people. A brave man, nothing scares him. He stood on the windowsill the whole time, taking risks if necessary, knowing that the difference between success and failure is like a hair's breadth and with him it's like a spider's cold."
"He has the perfect entrepreneurial ability in the sense that he knows how to predict where the markets he knows will move and direct a technological solution that will meet the market in the right place and at the right time and there will be demand for the product and it will be priced according to its uniqueness, as is the case with Stickpay today. This is another quality for an entrepreneur who has all the qualities together."
merger toSPAC according to 632 million dollars
About two months ago Stixpay announced its intention to go public through a merger with a SPAC traded on Nasdaq under the symbol EDNC, according to a company value of about 632 million dollars. As part of the merger, Stixpay is expected to raise approximately $230 million, of which approximately $201 million from the Endurance Fund and an additional $29 million from institutional investors through a private placement.
"He had charisma that allowed him to raise a lot of money over the years and give investors a return on their money. The combination of understanding the human soul together with the ability to succeed made him a machine for the success of many products and many ideas, an understanding of how to produce, an understanding of what is important and what is bland and where to concentrate effort, what to develop and which customer to concentrate on and who are the people that should be assigned to those stages of the moves. Gat presented a combination of a sensitive person with analytical abilities with outstanding performance abilities that can hardly be found in our places."
"He received the Israel Security Award twice and lit the beacon of the high-tech industry at the time. He has abilities that he achieved in huge operations that changed Israel's security in his military service and in the companies he founded and managed, as well as the other things he did that are less known, such as the donation to Reichman University, all kinds of charities of all kinds who kept a secret, a man of many deeds and many verbs."
"Gat's relationship with space began in the army. He studied electronic engineering at the Technion and worked in satellite communications. If someone won the Israel Security Award, he did things in the field of satellites that changed the IDF's way of fighting for many years." Leibovich explains.
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