Netafim

Netafim is the Israeli company that invented commercial drip irrigation and built it into a global precision agriculture business generating approximately $1 billion in revenue in 2024. Founded in 1965 on Kibbutz Hatzerim in the Negev Desert, Netafim now operates in more than 110 countries, though its ownership has been unsettled since October 2025, when Mexico's Orbia put its 80% controlling stake up for sale.

Origin

Drip irrigation, delivering water directly to the root zone of each plant through a network of emitters, was pioneered by Israeli engineer Simcha Blass in the 1950s. Kibbutz Hatzerim commercialized the technology by founding Netafim, scaling production of drippers, micro-sprinklers and control systems. The Negev proved an ideal testing ground: extreme heat, limited rainfall and brackish groundwater forced every innovation toward maximum yield per drop.

Global Scale

Netafim operates 29 manufacturing plants across five continents and employs approximately 6,000 people worldwide. Its systems irrigate crops ranging from field corn in Nebraska to sugarcane in India to avocados in Mexico. The company holds thousands of patents in emitter design, filtration, fertigation and digital crop management, and in 2024 it generated roughly $1 billion in revenue, about 13% of Orbia's total sales and its third-largest business group by that measure. In 2024, Netafim also announced a strategic partnership with ag-tech company Phytech to integrate plant-based irrigation monitoring into its precision agriculture solutions.

Ownership History and the Current Sale Process

Kibbutz Hatzerim, Markstone Capital Partners and Tene Investment Funds held Netafim through the 2000s before European private equity firm Permira acquired a 61% majority stake in 2011 at a valuation of roughly $850 million. In 2017, Permira and the kibbutz sold 80% of Netafim to Mexichem, now Orbia, at a valuation near $1.8 billion, with Kibbutz Hatzerim retaining its 20% stake. On October 15, 2025, Orbia announced its intention to sell its Netafim stake, hiring Evercore to run the process as the Mexican conglomerate worked to reduce debt that had reached $8.6 billion against roughly $7.5 billion in annual revenue. Israeli private equity firm Fortissimo Capital emerged as the early lead bidder near a $1 billion valuation, but those talks collapsed in early 2026 after Fortissimo sought a lower price. By February 2026, Calcalist, Globes and the Jerusalem Post reported Orbia was instead negotiating with a consortium led by Chinese-American businessman Haoyu Wang's Dayu Conserving Water Group, at a proposed valuation near $1.4 billion, with Orbia expected to retain a 10-20% stake in any new structure. By mid-2026, however, U.S. regulatory scrutiny over Netafim's American operations had stalled the Chinese bid, opening the door to a new potential buyer, Spanish irrigation group MatHolding. As of this writing, no sale has closed, and Kibbutz Hatzerim, which can block a buyer from a hostile country under its partnership agreement with Orbia, has said it would prefer an Israeli acquirer.

Strategic Significance

Netafim remains the origin story of Israeli agritech, the proof case that a country with almost no arable water could engineer its way into feeding global agriculture. The company's technology is embedded in national water strategies across India, China, sub-Saharan Africa and the Gulf states, and the outcome of its ownership transition will determine which country controls that infrastructure for the next decade.