Who Owns Cellebrite?

Cellebrite was established in Israel in 1999 by Avi Yablonka, Yaron Baratz, and Yuval Aflalo. The original business had nothing to do with forensics: it built hardware that let mobile phone retailers transfer contact lists and data between handsets, a service carriers offered customers upgrading their phones. Ron Serber joined in 2001 and Yossi Carmil in 2004, and the pair served as co-CEOs from 2005.

The decisive turn came in 2007, when the company created a dedicated mobile forensics division aimed at law enforcement. The Universal Forensic Extraction Device, known as UFED, let investigators pull call logs, messages, photos, and application data off seized handsets even when devices were locked or damaged. The product arrived as smartphone adoption exploded, giving police a tool for a device class that suddenly carried a suspect's entire digital life.

The same year, the founders sold the company to FutureDial and Sun Corporation of Japan for a reported $17 million. Yossi Carmil later described it as a company that had grown without outside capital being sold cheaply, a deal that made Sun Corporation the controlling shareholder it remains today.

Through the 2010s, UFED became standard equipment in police labs worldwide, and Cellebrite expanded into analytics with tools like Physical Analyzer for decoding extracted data and the Pathfinder investigative platform for correlating evidence across sources. The company drew global attention in 2016 amid speculation, which it never confirmed, that it had helped the FBI unlock the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone. That episode made Cellebrite a household name in the encryption debate, linking the company to the running argument between device makers and governments over lawful access.

Customer numbers grew in step. The company reported serving thousands of public safety agencies and private enterprises, reaching roughly 6,700 customer organizations across more than 140 countries by the time of its public listing, with certified training programs that made Cellebrite proficiency a standard line item in digital forensics careers.

In April 2021, Cellebrite announced a merger with SPAC TWC Tech Holdings II, completing the deal on August 30, 2021 at a valuation around $2.4 billion. Civil society groups publicly objected to the listing, citing the use of its tools by authoritarian governments.

Recent years brought a strategic shift to subscriptions and cloud. The company launched its Inseyets digital forensics suite as the successor to the UFED line, built out the Guardian SaaS evidence management platform, and on December 1, 2025 completed its first major acquisition, buying mobile virtualization firm Corellium. Full-year 2025 revenue reached $475.7 million, up 19% year on year, with annual recurring revenue of $480.8 million.