Noam Lanir: Empire Online, Livermore, Buff Technologies

The Builders | Olam.business

Edited on Jul 26, 2026.

Noam Lanir (born February 18, 1967, Haifa) is the founder, CEO, and ~74% controlling shareholder of London-listed Livermore Investments Group (AIM: LIV), and chairman and largest single shareholder of Buff Technologies (TASE: BUFT) with 13.66% of the equity. He floated Empire Online on AIM in 2005 at a ~$1 billion valuation, exited online gaming in 2006, absorbed a brutal 2008–09 drawdown, and is still allocating capital twenty years on.

Three companies, three phases. Empire Online created the fortune. Livermore Investments became the long-term vehicle. Buff Technologies is where the capital is currently pointed — and where the story turned into an AI story.

Lanir's life starts with a chapter most Israelis know without needing it explained. His father, Lieutenant Colonel Avraham (Avi) Lanir, was a fighter pilot and commander of Squadron 101 in the Israel Air Force. Shot down over Syria during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, he was captured, interrogated under torture, and killed — refusing, by every official account, to reveal the operational secrets he carried. Noam Lanir was six years old.

Snapshot

Born	February 18, 1967, Haifa, Israel
Father	Lt. Col. Avraham (Avi) Lanir — IAF fighter pilot, Squadron 101 commander, killed in Syrian captivity 1973
First company	Empire Online — founded 1998, AIM-listed June 2005 at ~$1B valuation
Main vehicle	Livermore Investments Group (AIM: LIV), BVI-incorporated — CEO and ~74% shareholder; insiders ~90%
Public board seat	Buff Technologies (TASE: BUFT) — chairman and largest single shareholder, 13.66%
Also owns	Shino Aviation (private jet leasing and charter); Life Tree Marketing (Israeli medical tourism)
Prior control position	Babylon Ltd (TASE: BBYL) — control acquired December 2007, exited 2019
Based in	Bnei Zion, Israel

Lanir's Route Into Business

Lanir grew up partly at Hatzor Air Force Base, where his father served. After 1973 the family moved to Ramat HaSharon, where he finished high school in 1985. He enlisted in the IAF pilot course, dropped out after a year, and served in the unmanned aerial vehicle unit of the IDF Intelligence Corps.

His business career began in 1990 as an owner and operator of Tel Aviv nightclubs, and by the early 1990s he was one of the recognized figures in Israeli nightlife. The pivot came in 1998, when he founded Empire Online — an internet marketing company that built one of the largest customer-acquisition platforms in online gambling, anchored in a partnership with PartyPoker, then the dominant operator in the category.

Empire Online: The First Fortune

Empire Online listed on London's AIM market in June 2005 at a valuation around $1 billion. Lanir's stake was reported at the time at more than $223 million. In 2007 he bought a further 30 million shares from his partner Arnon Katz for roughly $23 million, taking his holding to about 32%.

The 2006 US legislation effectively barring American banks from processing online gambling payments repriced the entire sector. PartyGaming consolidated, and Empire Online sold its remaining gaming stake to PartyGaming for $40 million in late 2006. Lanir later reportedly received an additional $250 million in settlement of a dispute with a business partner.

Livermore Investments: The Long Vehicle

After the gaming business was sold, the listed entity was restructured and renamed Livermore Investments Group, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and trading on AIM under LIV. The portfolio is concentrated in structured credit and collateralized loan obligations, fixed income, real estate, and selected technology positions. Small team, high insider ownership: Lanir holds approximately 74%, insiders roughly 90% in aggregate.

The arc was not linear. Livermore reported a loss of $61.9 million for 2008 and a further $21.5 million loss in the first half of 2009 as credit markets seized, and Lanir's separate real-estate exposure through Atlas Nechasim was written down heavily in the same window. He addressed it directly in a 2012 interview with Calcalist, calling the period a life lesson he had probably needed. The recovery is the part that matters commercially: the vehicle survived the drawdown and is still listed and still allocating.

Babylon: The TASE Control Chapter

Lanir acquired control of Babylon Ltd (TASE: BBYL) — the Or Yehuda translation-software company — in December 2007, buying 33.3% at NIS 3 per share from Kardan Technologies, Danny Goldstein's Formula Vision, and Eliezer Fishman's Monitin, in a transaction reported around $10.5 million. He served as chairman, traded the position actively through Livermore and his private vehicle Chanpak, and rode the company to a market value near NIS 2 billion in 2012.

Google's decision to end its distribution collaboration the following year removed most of that value. Lanir sold most of his remaining stake in December 2019 to Gabi Dishi and Michael Weiss's Tamim Alpha Fund, which bought 23% of the company from his private vehicle at NIS 2.50 per share. Babylon is the cautionary half of the record: a control position built on a single-channel dependency that the channel then withdrew.

Buff Technologies: The 13.66% Stake and the AI-Data Turn

Buff Technologies (TASE: BUFT) is the current live position. Founded in 2018 by Elay De Beer, Ofir Gartner, and Ofir Sharafi, Buff built a gaming loyalty platform — it runs alongside a game, scores player activity, and pays out points redeemable in its own store — and in August 2021 became the first gaming company to list in Tel Aviv, at a valuation of about NIS 90 million.

Lanir bought into that IPO and became the company's largest single shareholder, at a reported 13.66% of the equity, and took the chairmanship. He has added on weakness rather than sold into strength: in 2021 he bought roughly NIS 3.2 million of stock across three tranches on down days. The three founders remain the control bloc; Lanir is the largest outside holder and the chair. Yoav Harlap, deputy chairman of car importer Colmobil, is the other named interested party.

The stock has been punishing — Buff traded down to a market capitalization near NIS 20 million against roughly NIS 90 million at listing. Then the thesis changed. In April 2026 Buff raised about NIS 2.3 million from Eliyahu Kanfler's Bad Technological Development at NIS 5.5 per share, a 29% premium to market. In July 2026 the company disclosed a pilot agreement with one of the world's five largest artificial intelligence companies to supply gamer-behavior data for model training. The pilot is worth $300,000; the stock rose about 40% in a day, lifting the market capitalization to roughly NIS 33 million.

Lanir's framing of the opportunity is the useful part. He describes what AI labs are buying as the distilled wisdom of the crowd — behavioral data less contaminated by the bias and misinformation of open-web text — and puts it alongside the two capital races everyone already understands. As he told ynet, there is a race for chips, a race for data centers, and an enormous race for clean training data. Buff's own pitch is more specific: an AI developer can commission gamers to perform defined actions inside defined games, reward them for it, and take delivery of targeted behavioral data — racing-game data for automotive models, military-simulation data for defense models.

Buff remains unprofitable — 2025 revenue of $8.5 million against a $2 million net loss, on a base of roughly 20 million registered users — and the pilot is a $300,000 contract, not a business. But it repositions a NIS 33 million micro-cap from gaming adtech to AI training-data supply, and it puts Lanir's third act in the same category he has been circling since 1998: owning the acquisition layer between a large consumer audience and a buyer who needs it.

Lanir's Key Holdings

Livermore Investments Group (AIM: LIV) — CEO, ~74% controlling shareholder; insiders ~90%
Buff Technologies (TASE: BUFT) — chairman, largest single shareholder at 13.66%
Shino Aviation — Israeli private jet leasing and charter
Life Tree Marketing — markets Israeli hospital services to overseas patients
Real estate holdings in Israel and abroad; private positions across Israeli technology
Babylon Ltd (TASE: BBYL) — control 2007–2019, exited

Why Lanir Matters

Lanir is one of the cleaner Israeli examples of internet-era wealth converted into long-duration capital, drawdown included. The Empire Online transaction is twenty years old. The Livermore platform absorbed a $60 million-plus loss year and is still listed. Many of his Israeli internet-fortune contemporaries did not preserve their wealth into vehicles that kept compounding — and among the builders covered in Olam's Fintech and Public Markets coverage, a two-decade continuous listing is rare.

He also sits at the origin of a specific Israeli export category. Empire Online was Israeli capital and Israeli operators building the customer-acquisition layer for global online gambling — the same lineage that runs through Playtika in social casino and Shalom Mackenzie's SBTech in sports betting. Israel built the infrastructure of an industry it barely licenses at home.

His philanthropic record runs alongside the businesses rather than after them, including work with Sh'erit ha-Pletah and the Foundation for the Welfare of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, and wartime logistics and protective-equipment shipments for IDF units.

Why Lanir Matters Now

Two reasons, and they point in opposite directions. Livermore is a template: a London-listed, Israeli-controlled investment vehicle with a long holding orientation, which is one answer to where Israeli private wealth parks itself while Israeli capital markets carry a geopolitical risk premium. Buff is the other end of the barbell — a NIS 33 million TASE micro-cap making a credible claim on the AI data-supply chain, with Lanir in the chair and 13.66% of the equity.

He started in Tel Aviv nightlife. He lost a great deal in 2008 and kept the vehicle. The platform is still on the market, and the newest position is a bet that behavioral data is the next scarce input.

FAQ

Who is Noam Lanir?
Noam Lanir (born February 18, 1967, Haifa) is an Israeli entrepreneur, the founder, CEO, and ~74% controlling shareholder of London-listed Livermore Investments Group (AIM: LIV), and chairman and largest single shareholder of Buff Technologies (TASE: BUFT). He founded the company in 1998 as Empire Online, which floated on London's AIM in 2005 at a ~$1 billion valuation and was restructured as Livermore after exiting online gaming in 2006.

What is Noam Lanir's stake in Buff Technologies?
Lanir holds 13.66% of Buff Technologies (TASE: BUFT), making him the company's largest single shareholder, and he serves as chairman. He acquired the position in Buff's August 2021 Tel Aviv IPO — the first listing by a gaming company on the TASE — and added roughly NIS 3.2 million of stock across three purchases later that year. The three founders remain the control bloc.

What is Buff Technologies' AI data agreement?
In July 2026 Buff disclosed a $300,000 pilot agreement to supply gamer-behavior data to one of the world's five largest AI companies for model training. The customer was not named. Buff's shares rose about 40% on the news, lifting its market capitalization to roughly NIS 33 million. The company reported 2025 revenue of $8.5 million and a $2 million net loss, with about 20 million registered users.

Who was Avraham Lanir, Noam Lanir's father?
Lieutenant Colonel Avraham (Avi) Lanir was an Israel Air Force fighter pilot and commander of Squadron 101. He was shot down over Syria during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, captured, interrogated under torture, and killed — refusing to reveal the operational secrets he carried. He is one of the most respected fallen officers in IAF history. Noam Lanir was six years old.

What is Livermore Investments Group?
Livermore Investments Group Ltd (AIM: LIV) is a BVI-incorporated, London-listed investment firm controlled by Noam Lanir, who is CEO and holds approximately 74% of the shares; insiders hold roughly 90%. The portfolio is concentrated in structured credit, collateralized loan obligations, fixed income, real estate, and selected technology positions. It was formed in 2006 when Empire Online exited online gaming, and it reported losses of $61.9 million in 2008 and $21.5 million in the first half of 2009 before recovering.

What happened to Empire Online?
Empire Online was founded by Lanir in 1998 as an internet marketing company anchored in a partnership with PartyPoker. It listed on AIM in June 2005 at a valuation around $1 billion. After the 2006 US legislation barring American banks from processing online gambling payments, Empire Online sold its remaining gaming stake to PartyGaming for $40 million in late 2006, and the listed entity was restructured as Livermore Investments Group.

What was Noam Lanir's role at Babylon Ltd?
Lanir acquired control of Babylon Ltd (TASE: BBYL) in December 2007, buying 33.3% at NIS 3 per share from Kardan Technologies, Formula Vision, and Monitin in a deal reported around $10.5 million, and served as chairman. Babylon reached a market value near NIS 2 billion in 2012 before Google ended its distribution collaboration. He sold most of his remaining stake to the Tamim Alpha Fund in December 2019 at NIS 2.50 per share.

Primary Sources

Livermore Investments Group AIM disclosures and annual reports (AIM: LIV). Buff Technologies filings and immediate reports to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE: BUFT), including the July 2026 AI data-pilot disclosure and the April 2026 NIS 2.3 million private placement. Babylon Ltd TASE filings, December 2007 control acquisition and December 2019 sale to Tamim Alpha Fund. Empire Online AIM admission documents, June 2005. Contemporaneous reporting: Globes, TheMarker, Calcalist, Bizportal, ynet.

נעם לניר: מ-Empire Online ל-Livermore — ו-13.66% מבאפ טכנולוגיות

מעטים מבעלי ההון הישראלי שהתחילו בהימורים מקוונים עברו להשקעות לטווח ארוך בשוקי ההון. נעם לניר עשה זאת. בנו של גיבור חיל האוויר, מייסד אחד האקזיטים הישראליים המוקדמים של האינטרנט, בעל השליטה בחברת השקעות נסחרת בלונדון — וכיום יו"ר ובעל המניות הגדול בבאפ טכנולוגיות עם 13.66%.

Empire Online יצרה את ההון הראשון. Livermore הפכה לכלי ההשקעה לטווח ארוך. באפ טכנולוגיות היא ההימור הנוכחי — ומאז יולי 2026, גם סיפור של דאטה ל-AI.

The Olam Editorial Team | The Builders / הבונים

Noam Lanir: Founder of Empire Online, CEO of Livermore