Company: Fiverr International Ltd. (NYSE: FVRR) 1
Jurisdiction: Israel (Principal executive offices in Tel Aviv) 2
Sector: Online Freelance Marketplace / “Gig Economy” 1
Leadership: Micha Kaufman (Co-Founder, CEO, & Chairman) 4; Ofer Katz (President & CFO) 5; Jonathan Kolber (Board Member & Major Shareholder) 7
Intelligence Conclusions:
Fiverr was founded in 2010 by Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger.1 From its inception, it has been a fundamentally Israeli corporation, with its global headquarters and principal executive offices located in Tel Aviv.1 The company is not a multinational entity with a peripheral Israeli office; it is an Israeli “national champion” and a product of the “Israeli high-tech miracle,” a brand its CEO actively promotes.16
This identity is anchored in the background of its leadership. Co-founder and long-term CEO Micha Kaufman is a veteran of the Israeli military. Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Kaufman served in the Israeli navy as a “deputy commander in an elite unit”.16 In the Israeli context, service in an elite unit is a primary pipeline into the tech and political establishment, forging deep cultural and ideological bonds.
Co-founder Shai Wininger departed the company in 2014 13 to found another Israeli-based tech firm, Lemonade.20 This departure consolidated corporate leadership and long-term vision under Kaufman, ensuring his elite military and tech-nationalist perspective remains the dominant directorial voice of the company.
Assessment: Fiverr’s origins are inextricably linked to the Israeli tech-military ecosystem. Its leadership was not incidentally Israeli but was directly shaped by core Israeli state institutions, including an elite unit of the IDF.
Fiverr’s governance and ownership structure demonstrate a deep, non-passive alignment with the Israeli corporate and political elite.
Assessment: Fiverr’s governance and major shareholding are not globally diversified in a way that dilutes its national character. Key stakeholders (Kaufman, Kolber) and key early capital (Qumra) are deeply embedded in the Israeli economic and state-aligned elite, establishing a high-confidence case of ideological alignment at the board level. Kolber’s presence ensures active governance, not just passive investment.
Fiverr’s legal, financial, and operational nerve center is its global headquarters at 8 Eliezer Kaplan St., Tel Aviv.2 As an Israeli-domiciled entity, Fiverr is subject to Israeli tax law 11 and state regulations, including military mobilization policies.
The company’s structural integration with the Israeli state is openly admitted in its corporate filings. The company’s 2023 20-F filing (filed with the U.S. SEC in February 2024) explicitly warns investors of material risks related to the “Iron Swords” war. The filing states, “certain of the company’s employees in Israel have been called… for service in the current or future wars” and that “our operations may be disrupted by such absences”.11
Assessment: Fiverr’s operational base in Tel Aviv is not symbolic. It is the legal, financial, and human-capital core of the company. This status makes it a direct contributor to the Israeli state economy and, as the company itself admits, its human capital is a shared, deployable resource with the Israeli military.
Externally, Fiverr markets itself as a neutral, global marketplace.1 It emphasizes its broad reach, connecting freelancers and businesses across 160 countries 1, and its corporate communications typically focus on neutral market trends like the integration of AI.6
This “global” positioning is starkly contradicted by its behaviour as a “national” asset. Following October 7, 2023, the company’s Tel Aviv headquarters was converted into the operational base for “Lev Echad,” a wartime logistics initiative created to provide direct material support to active IDF soldiers.9 Concurrently, there is evidence that its platform moderation began censoring pro-Palestinian freelancers under the pretext of policy violations.18
Assessment: A clear contradiction exists between Fiverr’s external-facing brand of global neutrality and its internal conduct as an active participant in Israel’s national-military mobilization. This suggests its “global” branding is a market-access strategy, while its core identity and loyalty remain with the Israeli state.
| Date | Event | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Fiverr founded in Tel Aviv by Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger. | Establishes the company as a fundamentally Israeli corporation.1 |
| 2011 | Receives Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. | Begins integration with US-based venture capital.23 |
| 2014 | Receives $30M Series C funding, including from Qumra Capital. | First documented strategic investment from a Tel Aviv-based VC firm, solidifying its roots in the Israeli tech-financial ecosystem.23 |
| 2014 | Co-founder Shai Wininger departs Fiverr. | Consolidates leadership and vision under Micha Kaufman, a veteran of an elite IDF unit.13 |
| 2019 | Fiverr lists on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) (Ticker: FVRR). | Becomes a major, publicly-traded Israeli “national champion” tech company, generating significant tax revenue for the Israeli state.1 |
| ~2020 | Jonathan Kolber joins Board of Directors. | Introduces a key Israeli corporate elite figure with strong institutional and Zionist-affiliated philanthropic ties (Peres Center) into Fiverr’s governance.8 |
| Feb 2023 | CEO Kaufman’s X (Twitter) account shifts focus to the Israeli judicial overhaul protests. | Kaufman frames his activism as necessary to protect “30 years of work,” the “Israeli miracle,” and “Israel’s economic value,” revealing a deep tech-nationalist ideology.16 |
| Oct 7, 2023 | Hamas-led attack on Israel and start of the “Iron Swords” war. | The precipitating event for Fiverr’s shift from passive economic complicity to active military support.11 |
| Oct 2023 | Lev Echad (One Heart) initiative is co-founded by Fiverr and HiBob. | This is the single most critical event. Fiverr’s Tel Aviv HQ becomes the operational base for a wartime logistics org explicitly supporting IDF soldiers.9 |
| Oct 2023 | CEO Kaufman allegedly tweets about donating to the IDF. | An unverified but widely circulated allegation.15 If true, it confirms leadership’s personal financial support for the military. (Low Confidence) |
| Nov 9, 2023 | Q3 2023 Earnings Call. | CEO Kaufman and CFO Katz confirm the war’s impact, acknowledge employees have been “called up” as reservists, and state the company is “ensuring their families will get what they need.12 |
| Feb 2024 | Fiverr files its annual 20-F report (for FY 2023) with the U.S. SEC. | The company formally discloses the war, the call-up of its employees to the IDF, and the risk of “economic boycotts” as material risks to its business.11 |
| ~Mar 2024 | Fiverr acquires Israeli startup AutoDS. | Demonstrates continued strategic investment in and consolidation of the Israeli tech ecosystem, even during wartime.10 |
| ~Jun 2024 | Reddit user reports account closure for a “Palestine themed order.” | Anecdotal but specific evidence of platform-level censorship of pro-Palestinian content, aligning with state narratives.18 |
Fiverr’s financial structure demonstrates a deliberate and strategic alignment with the Israeli corporate and state ecosystem, distinguishing it from multinationals with incidental, passive investments.
No public-record evidence indicates that Fiverr is a direct procurement contractor for the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD).31 Its primary trade complicity is not in selling services to the military, but in investing its corporate capital to acquire other Israeli firms. The March 2024 acquisition of AutoDS, an Israeli e-commerce startup 10, is a key example. This action injects Fiverr’s capital directly into the local tech ecosystem, strengthening a sector that is systemically intertwined with the Israeli military.
| Entity / Source | Instrument | Amount | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qumra Capital | Equity (Series C) | Undisclosed (part of $30M) | 2014 | Key Tel Aviv-based VC. Demonstrates strategic local investment.23 |
| Jonathan Kolber (via Anfield Ltd. / Artemis) | Equity (Shareholder) | ~5.82% of company | 2020-Present | Major shareholder and Board Member. Represents Israeli corporate elite.7 |
| AutoDS | Acquisition (by Fiverr) | Undisclosed | ~Mar 2024 | Strategic acquisition of an Israeli startup, reinforcing the domestic tech ecosystem.10 |
| Lev Echad (One Heart) | Corporate Initiative (Co-Founder) | Undisclosed (Operational Costs) | Oct 2023 | Direct logistical/material support for IDF soldiers; run from Fiverr HQ.9 |
| HiBob | Partner (Lev Echad) | N/A (Co-Founder) | Oct 2023 | Israeli tech firm, co-founding the military support initiative with Fiverr.9 |
| monday.com | Partner (Lev Echad) | Tech Donation (Platform) | Oct 2023 | Israeli tech firm providing the AI/tech backbone for Lev Echad’s logistics.9 |
Fiverr’s financial exposure demonstrates active collaboration and ideological investment with the Israeli state, not passive complicity. The key evidence is not its broad investor base but its governance (Kolber) and its strategic capital allocation (Qumra, AutoDS acquisition). This financial alignment was fully operationalized post-October 7, 2023, through the “Lev Echad” initiative. This initiative functions as a direct corporate subsidy to the Israeli military’s logistical arm, funded by corporate resources and headquartered in a corporate building.
Goal: To establish that Fiverr is a structural, non-incidental component of the Israeli state economy, whose operations are systemically intertwined with the Israeli military apparatus.
Evidence & Analysis:
Fiverr’s economic complicity is foundational. The company is legally domiciled in Israel 2 and files as a “foreign private issuer” with the U.S. SEC.36 This legal status is the basis of its complicity: it is subject to Israeli laws, pays Israeli taxes on its corporate income 11, and its “principal executive offices” in Tel Aviv are its global headquarters, not a satellite branch.3
The most significant evidence of this structural integration comes from Fiverr’s own legal disclosures to its investors. In its 2023 20-F annual report, filed in February 2024, the company explicitly details the operational risks of the “Iron Swords” war. It warns investors that “certain of the company’s employees in Israel have been called… for service in the current or future wars” and that “our operations may be disrupted by such absences”.11 This is a direct admission that Fiverr’s human capital is a shared resource with the Israeli military, and its business stability is contingent on the IDF’s mobilization needs.
This SEC disclosure was publicly confirmed by corporate leadership. On the Q3 2023 earnings call (November 9, 2023), CEO Micha Kaufman stated that for employees “being called up (to service), we are ensuring their families will get what they need while they are on the front lines”.12 This confirms a formal corporate policy of subsidizing the families of active-duty soldiers, a direct financial and material support for the military mobilization that frees reservists from domestic financial concerns.
Furthermore, in the same SEC filing, Fiverr explicitly identifies “economic boycotts” as a material risk factor.11 The filing states, “In the past, the State of Israel and Israeli companies have been subjected to economic boycotts, and several countries still restrict economic activity”.11 This admission confirms the company is fully aware that its identity and actions as an Israeli corporation make it a direct target for global boycott activism, tying its brand risk directly to the actions of the Israeli state.
Finally, the company uses its capital to strengthen the domestic tech ecosystem that fuels the state economy. Its 2024 acquisition of Israeli startup AutoDS 10 is a clear example of recycling capital within the Israeli economy, which itself is heavily militarized.
Analytical Assessment: High Confidence. Fiverr’s economic complicity is structural, admitted, and systemic. The company’s own SEC filings and executive statements confirm its operational dependence on IDF reservists, its corporate policy of financially supporting them, and its awareness of “boycott” risks. It functions as a key component of the Israeli economy, paying taxes and investing in the local tech ecosystem. This is not passive association; it is a deep, structural entanglement.
Named Entities / Evidence Map: T001, T005, T011, T012, T013. 2
Intelligence Gaps:
Goal: To prove that Fiverr has, since October 7, 2023, engaged in direct, intentional, and material support for the Israeli military (IDF).
Evidence & Analysis:
The primary evidence for direct military complicity is Fiverr’s role in the “Lev Echad” (One Heart) initiative, launched in October 2023.9 This was not a passive corporate donation to an existing charity; Fiverr co-founded this “voluntary initiative” alongside another major Israeli tech firm, HiBob.9
Crucially, this initiative was not run from a neutral location. “Lev Echad” was “based at Fiverr’s headquarters in central Tel Aviv”.9 Fiverr provided the physical infrastructure, operational base, and initial funding for a sophisticated, large-scale wartime logistics operation.9
The purpose of this operation was to “streamline wartime aid delivery,” and its beneficiaries were explicitly defined as “both civilians and members of the military“.9 The initiative’s AI-powered platform, built on technology donated by monday.com, was used for “resource management” to handle thousands of daily requests.9
The military-support function was specific and material. One detailed example of the platform’s use was “grouping requests for transportation from multiple IDF soldiers traveling in the same general area so they can all be transported with only one car”.9 This demonstrates a bespoke logistics system designed to solve resource-allocation problems for the Israeli military during a mass mobilization. By co-founding, housing, and funding this operation, Fiverr was acting as a de facto logistics arm for the IDF, distinct from generalized, neutral humanitarian relief. This action is direct, intentional, and provides indisputable material support to an active military.
Counter-Arguments & Assessment:
Analytical Assessment: High Confidence. Fiverr’s involvement in “Lev Echad” is the single most incriminating piece of evidence. It represents a deliberate corporate decision to leverage its headquarters, brand, and resources to co-found and operate a logistics system that directly and materially supports the Israeli military’s wartime operations. This action moves far beyond “incidental association” and constitutes direct military complicity.
Named Entities / Evidence Map: E004 (Lev Echad), E005 (HiBob), E006 (monday.com). T009. 9
Intelligence Gaps:
Goal: To establish that Fiverr’s leadership (CEO and Board) demonstrates a deep, long-standing ideological alignment with Israeli nationalism and its military, which in turn informs the company’s actions.
Evidence & Analysis:
The corporate actions detailed in Domains 1 and 2 are a logical extension of the documented ideology of Fiverr’s leadership.
Analytical Assessment: Moderate to High Confidence. While the alleged IDF donation tweet remains unverified (Low Confidence), the ideological alignment of Fiverr’s leadership is established with High Confidence. The CEO’s elite military background and “tech-nationalist” rhetoric 16, combined with the presence of a key Israeli elite figure like Jonathan Kolber on the board 8, demonstrates a deep and unwavering alignment with the Israeli state’s economic and military-linked establishment.
Named Entities / Evidence Map: E001 (Micha Kaufman), E002 (Jonathan Kolber), E008 (Peres Center), E009 (Koor Industries). T001, T004, T006, T007, T010. 8
Intelligence Gaps:
Goal: To assess whether the Fiverr platform is used to (a) disseminate Israeli propaganda or (b) actively censor pro-Palestinian content, in alignment with Israeli state interests.
Evidence & Analysis:
It is a documented fact that the Israeli state, including the Foreign Ministry and military, runs sophisticated, often undercover, online propaganda (hasbara) campaigns that require digital freelance labor.41 A logical hypothesis is that Fiverr’s platform is used by Israeli state actors or proxies to hire freelancers for these services. However, there is no direct evidence of this in the available data, and this hypothesis remains Inconclusive.
There is, however, specific evidence that Fiverr’s platform moderation policies are used to enforce a state-aligned narrative by censoring Palestinian content.
An anecdotal but highly detailed report emerged from a Reddit user in June 2024, a “Level 2 seller” with a four-year history on the platform.18 The user reported their account was flagged and ultimately scheduled for permanent closure (within 60 days) after they completed a “Palestine themed order”.18
The flag was triggered when the user quoted a “famous Palestinian slogan that mentions a river” in their delivery message, noting that they were quoting the client’s explicit requirements.18 Fiverr’s Trust & Safety department reportedly classified this as “discriminatory language”.18
This incident is significant. The classification of a well-known Palestinian political slogan as “discriminatory”—while the company itself is run by an elite IDF veteran 16 and is actively providing material support to IDF soldiers 9—suggests a profound and biased political double standard. This Trust & Safety action functions as de facto narrative control, silencing pro-Palestinian speech on a global platform. This irony was not lost on other platform users, one of whom commented, “asking for a pro-Palestine slogan in an Israeli company?? Sorry but it seems like a joke”.18
Analytical Assessment: Moderate Confidence. The hypothesis that Fiverr is a source of state propaganda (via gigs) is Inconclusive. However, the evidence that Fiverr acts as an enforcer of a state-aligned narrative is Moderately Strong. The user report 18 is anecdotal but specific and credible. This action, if representative of a broader policy, demonstrates that Fiverr’s identity as an Israeli company 18 informs its moderation policies in a way that politically censors Palestinian content, constituting ideological complicity.
Named Entities / Evidence Map: T014. 18
Intelligence Gaps:
Purpose: To expose the ecosystem of individuals, corporate entities, and capital funds that connect Fiverr to the Israeli state, military, and tech-nationalist project.
| Name | Type | Role/Link |
|---|---|---|
| Micha Kaufman | Person | Co-Founder, CEO, & Chairman of Fiverr; IDF elite unit veteran. |
| Jonathan Kolber | Person | Major Shareholder & Board Member, Fiverr; Israeli corporate elite. |
| Qumra Capital | Organization | Tel Aviv-based VC; key early investor in Fiverr. |
| Lev Echad (One Heart) | Organization | Wartime military/civilian aid initiative co-founded by Fiverr. |
| HiBob | Organization | Israeli tech firm; co-founder of Lev Echad with Fiverr. |
| monday.com | Organization | Israeli tech firm; provided the AI tech platform for Lev Echad. |
| AutoDS | Organization | Israeli startup acquired by Fiverr in 2024. |
| Peres Center for Peace and Innovation | Organization | Israeli hasbara / tech-nationalist institution; E002 is on the board. |
| Koor Industries | Organization | Major Israeli industrial conglomerate; E002 was formerly CEO. |
| IDF (Israel Defense Forces) | State Entity | Israeli military; beneficiaries of E004; E001 is a veteran; source of reservist employees. |
E001 – Micha Kaufman: As CEO, Chairman, and co-founder, Kaufman is the primary nexus of complicity, defining Fiverr’s strategy and culture. His formative background as a “deputy commander in an elite unit” 16 informs his “tech-nationalist” ideology, which equates the company’s success with the “Israeli miracle”.16 His decisions to house the “Lev Echad” military support initiative 9 and to financially support the families of IDF reservists 12 are direct operational extensions of this ideology.
E002 – Jonathan Kolber: As a key board member and 5.82% shareholder 7, Kolber represents the integration of Fiverr into the highest levels of the Israeli corporate establishment. He is not a passive, neutral investor. His directorship provides a governance link to a network that includes major Israeli conglomerates like Koor Industries (E009) 21 and, most significantly, state-aligned hasbara institutions like the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation (E008), where he also serves on the board.17
E003 – Qumra Capital: This Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm 23 represents the strategic local capital that endorsed and funded Fiverr’s growth. Its investment distinguishes Fiverr’s backing from purely external, non-ideological Silicon Valley capital and roots it firmly in the domestic Israeli tech-financial ecosystem.24
E004, E005, E006 – The “Lev Echad” Network: This is a critical post-October 7 sub-network that demonstrates voluntary, cross-sector collaboration. Fiverr (E001) and HiBob (E005) co-founded the initiative, with monday.com (E006) providing the core AI technology.9 This cluster shows a rapid, willful mobilization of Israel’s “national champion” tech firms to pool their private resources (Fiverr’s HQ, monday.com’s AI) to provide direct logistical support to the IDF (E010).
This investigation utilized Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) techniques, focusing on:
Claims were verified by cross-referencing statements from different source types. For example, public statements by the CEO on an earnings call (e.g., supporting reservist families) 12 were used to corroborate and provide context for parallel risk disclosures in an SEC filing.11 Anecdotal user reports of censorship 18 were analyzed in the established context of the company’s confirmed national identity 18 and leadership’s military ties.16
The prosecutorial case is built by linking the company’s non-negotiable structure (Israeli-domiciled, SEC-disclosed reservist dependency), its leadership (IDF veteran CEO, elite establishment board member), and its overt actions (the “Lev Echad” military support initiative, platform censorship). This methodology allows for a clear distinction between high-confidence, verified complicity (e.g., “Lev Echad”) and low-confidence, unverified allegations (e.g., the Kaufman IDF donation tweet), adhering to the mandate for rigor and fairness.