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It’s #Firgun time.
The phrase “Firgun” (pronounced ‘feer-goon’) is a casual fashionable Hebrew time period and idea in Israeli tradition (initially Yiddish), which describes real, unselfish delight or satisfaction within the accomplishment of the opposite particular person. It’s the other of “schadenfreude”. Firgun is all about genuinely feeling and expressing happiness, satisfaction, or admiration for another person’s accomplishments, luck, or well-being. Extra about Firgun and why it issues on VC Cafe: https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p
433 days since Oct 7 2023. The talks a few potential deal are intensifying, offering the households of Israelis taken from their houses with cautious optimism and hope. Hanukkah is the time for miracles ,in spite of everything. We should not neglect them and we have to #BRINGTHEMHOME now.
This week for me was marked by quite a lot of Jewish associated occasions: from a discuss AI by Reid Hoffman in a West London synagogue, to RestartIL that appeared to showcase Israeli innovation to Classic Funding Companions summit in London, bringing collectively among the world’s greatest enterprise traders and at last a meet and greet lunch of fellow VCs. What all of them had in widespread is that regardless of the warfare, there’s a way of optimism and want to attach and collaborate extra. It’s time to construct.
I used to be having lunch with a senior investor in London, who requested me: how lengthy till enterprise in Israel returns to regular? The reply is: it already has. Israeli exits are up 78% (!) from 2023, reaching $13.4 billion, based on a brand new report by PWC Israel. Funding for startups can also be up 35% within the first 9 months of 2024 in comparison with the equal interval in 2023, pre-war. Israeli Cybersecurity startups raised over $4 billion in 2024 led by Wiz and Cyera , and AI accounted to over 30% of all investments. Lastly, the Israeli inventory market outperforms world friends regardless of warfare, surging 27% in 2024. Apple‘s first AI server chip to be engineered in Israel and Amazon’s supercomputer and server expertise is powered by Israeli Annapurna Labs, which was acquired in 2016. The pattern of funding and Israeli innovation is prone to strengthen in 2025. I’m excited to play a small position with Remagine Ventures.
Within the wider tech world, Google has launched a brand new quantum chip referred to as Willow, Willow carried out an ordinary benchmark computation in below 5 minutes that will take one in all right now’s quickest supercomputers 10 septillion (that’s, 1025) years — a quantity that vastly exceeds the age of the Universe. Willow additionally ‘indicates that a number of universes exist’… we reside in really unimaginable occasions. Google additionally introduced Gemini 2.0, its strongest mannequin but with advances in multimodality and the power to research (and ‘see’) video in actual time. The search big additionally launched undertaking Mariner, AI brokers that may use the net for you (much like Anthropic’s laptop use mode).
OpenAI continued with their 12 days of bulletins – they’ve launched Sora, their a lot anticipated AI video generator (not but out there within the UK or EU) and likewise ChatGPT Imaginative and prescient, the place paying customers can level their telephones at objects and have ChatGPT will reply in close to actual time. xAI launched a brand new picture generator referred to as Aurora and made Grok out there to all X customers. Meta launched LLaMa 3.3 and the power to watermark AI generated movies. Stability AI is debt free and rising once more. Midjourney launched Patchwork, a digital world constructing device. Devin, the AI coding Agent by Cognition is now typically out there. ServiceTitan went public with a $9 billion valuation – is the IPO window opening?
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
I meet Israeli entrepreneurs daily and proceed to be astounded on the degree of innovation and high quality of startups this tiny nation produces. Each main investor who is aware of the business will inform you an identical factor: Israeli excessive tech is primed for continued progress and innovation, and stays the envy of each different nation.
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congratulations Gal Moav and staff Evinced in your $55M sequence C to offer accessibility instruments to software program builders!
- Option to go Alon Jackson and staff Astrix Safety in your $45M sequence B to offer visibility into all non-human identities and forestall provide chain assaults!
- Properly finished Nadav Keyson and staff Riverside.fm in your $30M sequence C to allow media firms and content material creators to document high-quality audio and video content material instantly from their browsers!
- Nice stuff Dor Sasson and staff Stigg in your $17.5M sequence A to construct the primary unified monetisation platform to assist SaaS startups get higher at dynamic pricing!
- Mazel tov Israel Krush and staff Hyro on the $15M sequence B extension to sort out healthcare’s AI wants!
- Kol hakavod Alan Bekker, PhD and staff eSelf AI for popping out of stealth with a $4.5M seed spherical to construct reside, interactive AI assistants!
- Thumbs up Michal Beressi Golomb and staff Celleste Bio on elevating a $4.5M seed spherical to supply pure cocoa components by cultivating cocoa cells in managed environments!
EXITS
NEW FUNDS
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
ISRAEL
- Israel’s tech paradox – by The Instances of Israel
- Israeli firm Odysight.ai, a pacesetter in AI-powered video sensor options, has been chosen by NASA to combine its cutting-edge visualisation methods into future aerospace automobiles.
- On the worrying rise in Antisemitism in Canada and Australia
Bonus: please try Subsequent October – a shifting initiative by former tech minister and skilled investor Izhar Shay who sadly misplaced his son Yaron on October seventh and is now seeking to honour ALL the Israeli victims of this warfare by pairing them with a startup. Really inspiring. https://www.nextoctober.org/
GLOBAL
- On SuperAgency and AI adoption going ahead – primarily based on a chat that Reid Hoffman gave in London this week and his new e-book on AI brokers – by me on VC Cafe
- AI in 2025: Constructing Blocks Firmly in Place by Sequoia Capital
- How AI is fuelling innovation in monetary providers – by Perception Companions
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
In keeping with Yaron Weizenbluth , Hello-Tech Companion and Assurance Chief at PwC Israel , 2024 seems to be one of the best 12 months for mergers and acquisitions within the final decade. (supply)
Sacra estimates that Wiz hit $500M annual recurring income (ARR) in July 2024, up 103% YoY. After declining a $23B acquisition supply from Google and repositioning its product to instantly go after Snyk, Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike, Wiz is now projecting it should cross $1B ARR earlier than going public in 2025.
114 firms created 43% of all exit worth for VCs within the final decade. We checked out ~5600 exits (IPOs and acquisitions) over the past decade within the US, Europe, Australia, and Israel. Of these 5600 exits, solely 79 (1.4%) of those firms exited for $5B+, and in the event you look throughout the highest 1% of exits every year, that features one other 35 firms. (supply: Felicis)
Europe’s prime 50 SME Vertical SaaS scale-ups based on Eight Roads (supply)
The Prosumer prime 50 startups, based on German VC fund Headline contains 3 Israeli startups! Kudos Sequence, Guidde, timeOS (supply)
Right here’s a stunning stat concerning the focus of capital in enterprise capital: 74% of capital raised in 2024 went to simply 30 VC companies
Firms main in digital and AI outperform financially from McKinsey & Firm , 2024 the 12 months in charts
The LLM mannequin warfare is a a lot nearer race now (supply) OpenAI Anthropic Google Amazon Meta Mistral AI Perplexity
130+ AI Brokers which are Y-Combinator backed (by Michael Tefula, supply)
87% of the Fall 2024 batch are AI startups—with 83 of 95 firms explicitly mentioning “AI” of their identify, tagline, or description. Been monitoring this AI pattern for YC batches over the previous two years: – 77% in Summer time 2024 – 70% in Winter 2024 – 57% in Summer time 2023 – 32% in Winter 2023 (supply)
How AI is Shaping the Way forward for Design and Optimization by Hitachi Ventures Partech and DTCP
Andreessen Horowitz massive concepts for tech in 2025 (supply)
Try this dialog between Michael Eisenberg and Adam Fisher
That’s all for this week. There’s lots to rejoice in our “small” group! Carry on creating!
I am a former common associate 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 help of Room to Learn. Since inception in 2012 we have constructed 11 faculties and 50 libraries within the growing world.
