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When you’re new right here, the phrase “Firgun” (pronounced ‘feer-goon’) is an off-the-cuff trendy Hebrew time period and idea in Israeli tradition (initially Yiddish), which describes real, unselfish delight or satisfaction within the accomplishment of the opposite individual. It’s the alternative of “schadenfreude” (which stands for being glad for another person’s misfortune). Firgun is all about genuinely feeling and expressing happiness, satisfaction, or admiration for members of our neighborhood’s accomplishments, luck and wins. Extra about Firgun and why it issues on VC Cafe: https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p
Eli Sharabi, an Israeli who spent over 500 days hostage, starved, overwhelmed and had his spouse and daughters killed on October seventh, visited the White Home this week with different former hostages and their members of the family. It’s inspiring how an individual who’ve been by means of a lot, and misplaced the individuals closest to him, can discover the energies to struggle for individuals who can’t fend for themselves. There are nonetheless 59 Israelis held in G**a in horrible situations. 23 are believed to be alive. We should #BRINGTHEMHOME NOW ??
Israeli tech funding remained secure in February, with 25 startups elevating a complete of $588 million and two new unicorns minted: Dream and Augury. A brand new report revealed by IVC Knowledge and Insights confirmed that it’s the buyers, not the startups, who’re being challenged: VC fundraising is at a decade low, having simply $922 million in dry powder in 2024. I’ll simply echo people like Invoice Ackman, Safra Katz or Juan Delgado-Moreira – “Now could be the perfect time to spend money on Israel“.
It’s been one other packed week within the AI and wider tech world. Mistral AI launched Mistral OCR, a brand new API designed for doc understanding. Google has launched AI Mode, an experimental characteristic in its Search platform, aimed toward dealing with complicated and open-ended queries. OpenAI’s ChatGPT macOS app now helps direct code enhancing inside built-in growth environments (IDEs). The corporate is toying a Phd stage AI Agent that may price $20,000 a month. Microsoft has launched Dragon Copilot, an AI assistant designed for healthcare professionals in addition to AI brokers for gross sales to tackle Salesforce. Tencent‘s HunyuanVideo I2V Mannequin extends their text-to-video mannequin to image-to-video era. Alibaba Group‘s Qwen crew has launched QwQ-32B, an open-source AI mannequin designed for superior reasoning duties. Sesame has launched hyper-realistic AI voice fashions, Maya and Miles, below their Conversational Speech Mannequin (CSM). Anthropic has simply raised $3.5bn in a spherical at a post-money valuation of $61.5bn. Firefly Aerospace‘s Blue Ghost has turn into the primary industrial spacecraft to efficiently land on our Moon. T-Cell and Perplexity are teaming up on an AI cellphone. Taiwan’s TSMC introduced $100 billion funding in US chipmaking And at last, RIP Skype.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Don’t rely the times, make the times rely”
– Muhammad Ali
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congratulations Dor G. and crew Grain on popping out of stealth with $50M in funding ($33M collection A and beforehand undisclosed seed) to assist any enterprise hedge towards FX volatility!
- Properly completed Erez Druk and crew Freed in your $30M collection A in your AI agent for clinicians!
- Kudos Mor Peretz and crew CaPow in your $15M collection A to assist robotic firms together with your wi-fi charging expertise that eliminates downtime and boosts fleet effectivity!
- Approach to go Gadi Evron and crew Knostic on securing an $11M collection A spherical to assist enterprises undertake AI instruments with out worrying about information leaks!
- Nice stuff Ron Arbel and crew Aryon Safety on popping out of stealth with $9M in seed funding to proactively stop cloud dangers, earlier than they emerge!
- Kol hakavod Stav Levi Neumark and crew Alta on popping out of stealth with a $7M seed spherical to carry AI-driven gross sales brokers to market!
- Mazal tov Orly Shoavi and crew ClarityQ GenAI Product Analytics on rising from stealth with a $3.7M seed spherical to use AI to digital product utilization evaluation!
EXITS
NEW APPOINTMENTS
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
ISRAEL
- The state of ladies in tech 2025 – a report by the Israel Innovation Authority
- The Israel 2024 buyers report – by Gornitzky GNY, KPMG and IVC Knowledge and Insights
- Ilya Sutskever’s Protected Superintelligence eyes $2B funding as Israeli crew quietly grows – by Calcalist ???????
GENERAL
- Past Basis fashions – my put up on VC Cafe on the commoditisation of basis fashions and what comes subsequent (AI Brokers, Vertical AI and AI apps)
- The highest 100 GenAI client apps – by Andreessen Horowitz (associated – A16Z made 7 investments in Israel in 2024, together with our Remagine Ventures portfolio firm, Keewano)
- ???? ?????? = ??? ?????? – by Y Combinator – YC on AI-first software program growth (for 25% of the startups within the present YC batch, 95% of the code is AI generated!)
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
The state of ladies in tech in 2025 – The variety of feminine college students in STEM levels has doubled in a decade, outpacing male progress 3:1 and there are Extra girls in core tech roles – The variety of girls in R&D has grown 140% in 10 years. However there’s nonetheless numerous work to do. Take a look at the report by Israel Innovation Authority right here
Israeli VC capital elevating hit a decade low in 2024, based on a brand new IVC Knowledge and Insights report, however startups weren’t affected but in 2024, elevating over $10 billion (supply)
Israel’s AI21 Labs launched a brand new model of Jamba mannequin and it’s the perfect performing mannequin for personal deployment
As of March 2025, there are 1,446 lively unicorns globally, with $868.4B in funding and a mixed valuation of $4.6T.
Startup funding -20% YoY to $19.3B in Feb, U.S. leads with 54% of world VC funding
Small checks matter in SAFE rounds, based on Carta (I agree!)
The AI Agent stack by Jon Turow and Madrona (supply)
Economies of scale. Stripe has processed over $1 trillion in funds in 2024. I like to recommend studying the corporate’s annual letter (supply)
The Quantum Computing panorama by APEX Ventures (supply)
The highest 50 AI apps by month-to-month lively customers, by Andreessen Horowitz (supply)
I might go on however that’s all for this week! Thanks for studying. There’s loads to rejoice in our “small” neighborhood. Carry on creating!
I am a former common accomplice at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google’s first bodily hub for startups.
I am additionally the founding father of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing collectively the startup ecosystem on biking challenges in assist of Room to Learn. Since inception in 2012 we have constructed 11 colleges and 50 libraries within the creating world.
