Israel's thriving venture capital industry has played an important role in financing and funding Silicon Wadi. The financial crisis of 2007–08 affected the availability of venture capital locally. In 2009, there were 63 mergers and acquisitions in the Israeli market worth a total of $2.54 billion; 7% below 2008 levels ($2.74 billion), when 82 Israeli companies were merged or acquired, and 33% lower than 2007 proceeds ($3.79 billion) when 87 Israeli companies were merged or acquired. Numerous high tech Israeli companies have been acquired by global corporations for its provision of reliable and quality corporate personnel. The March acquisition of Israeli company Mellanox for $6.9 billion by Nvidia Corporation is a definite contender for the largest M&A deal in 2019. Generally, Israeli startups are becoming so attractive that US companies tend to acquire them more than anyone else: they account for half of all transactions in 2018. Thus, Israels eventually became a "net seller".