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The phrase “Firgun” (pronounced ‘feer-goon’) is a casual trendy Hebrew time period and idea in Israeli tradition (initially Yiddish), which describes real, unselfish delight or pleasure within the accomplishment of the opposite particular person. It’s the alternative of “schadenfreude”. Firgun is all about genuinely feeling and expressing happiness, pleasure, 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
Trump was sworn in because the forty seventh US president. He selected to incorporate the households of the hos***es as the primary subject within the ceremony they usually stood proper behind Trump in his most important speech. It was arduous to not get emotional watching Emily, Romi and Doron re-unite with their households final Sunday ?? (see video). Extremely courageous girls. We expect 4 extra girls to return this Sunday as half of the present ceasefire deal. We should deliver all of them residence so the therapeutic can start. #BRINGTHEMHOME ??
Slowly the normalcy appears to be returning to the Israeli startup ecosystem. Extra airways have resumed common flights to Tel Aviv. There are optimistic indicators that hostilities are winding down and Israel’s geopolitical actuality is brighter than it’s been, with potential to broaden the Abraham accords to different international locations within the area. Right here’s to hoping.
The largest information in tech this week was the announcement of Stargate Challenge – a $500B AI infrastructure funding plan for the US. OpenAI is standing to be the principle beneficiary, and it already stirred controversy with Elon Musk’s feedback. The corporate additionally introduced its first AI Agent, referred to as Operator, accessible to PRO customers just for now. Perplexity launched AI-powered assistant to assist with every day duties. Chinese language AI heating up competitors: DeepSeek AI rocked the AI world this week with its R1 Mannequin exhibiting comparable outcomes to OpenAI’s o1 mannequin, simply open supply and at 5% or 10% of the price of OpenAI’s API. ByteDance additionally unveiled upgraded AI mannequin Doubao-1.5, which surpasses OpenAI’s o1 on AIME, a benchmark evaluating AI efficiency on complicated duties. Talking of, TikTok‘s US ban lasted 1 day, as President Trump granted the corporate a 75 day extension. The corporate is hoping it gained’t need to promote. Google is investing one other $1 billion in Anthropic. The search big additionally rolled out a brand new Gemini 2.0 Flash Pondering Mannequin with superior reasoning. Google additionally launched Titans, a analysis paper detailing a novel method that would change the transformer mannequin utilized by LLMs immediately. Are we about to see layoffs in banking? Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon says that AI can draft 95% of an S1 IPO prospectus “in minutes” (vs. a group of 6 and weeks of labor earlier than). French Open Supply LLM Mistral AI is seeking to IPO, Spline launched Spell, a mannequin to generate 3D worlds. And at last, Trump signed an government order to advertise crypto, probably develop nationwide digital asset stockpile, led by David O. Sacks.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The golden age of America begins proper now. From at the present time ahead, our nation will flourish and be revered once more everywhere in the world.” –
President Donald Trump, 2025 Inauguration Speech.
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congratulations Alon Joffe and group Eleos Well being on securing a $60M sequence C to to energy proprietary behavioural well being AI know-how with information from actual classes.
- Mazel tov Roy Tuvey and group Vertice in your $50M sequence C to proceed scaling your SaaS spend optimisation platform!
- Nicely performed Tal Mozes and group Mitiga in your $30M sequence B to guard enterprises from cybersecurity threats of their cloud environments.
- Kudos Ziv Fass and group PACKAGE.AI in your $14M sequence A to streamline final mile deliveries and logistics with AI!
- Strategy to go Matan Cohen and group Doti AI in your $7M seed spherical to assist enterprises securely entry and make the most of inside information!
EXITS
- Not all exits are glad however nonetheless an final result. Congratulations Avi Golan and group Oosto (previously Anyvision) on the acquisition of your facial recognition know-how by Metropolis Applied sciences for $125M.
NEW APPOINTMENTS
- Large congrats Mor Chen in your new function as Companion at Greylock specializing in early stage Israeli startups! Hope we are able to do a deal collectively quickly!
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
ISRAEL
- Why I’m bullish in regards to the Israeli tech sector – by Noam Bardin, former CEO of Waze (Acquired by Google for $1.4 billion)
- For now, Israeli officers count on the settlement to carry – by Jerusalem Publish
- State of the cyber nation 2024 report – by YL Ventures and associated:
GLOBAL
- M&A involving VC backed startups picked up in 2024 – by Crunchbase
- Tech leaders pledge $500 billion to put money into AI – by The Wall Avenue Journal
- World Cybersecurity Outlook 2025 – by World Financial Discussion board
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
The 2025 Israeli retail-tech startup map by Coresight Analysis and the Retail Innovation Membership was added to my new 2025 panorama assortment on VC Cafe .
The resignation that wasn’t. Calcalist, a number one Israeli publication, printed that Michael Eisenberg is leaving the VC agency he helped create, Aleph, however didn’t await affirmation. The article was deleted after he denied it on X and an apology was issued. Globes has extra.
The proactive safety startup panorama by MMC Ventures (supply)
The quickest rising markets in 2025 revolve round AI.
That being mentioned, solely 32% of the technique leaders we surveyed have lively genAI deployments at their organisations. (supply)
The highest 3 ache factors technique groups cite as limitations to genAI adoption are:
- Safety & privateness dangers (46%)
- Competing inside priorities (42%)
- Authorized & regulatory concerns (40%)
Stay lengthy and prosper (possibly with a bit of assist from AI?). The brand new longevity startup panorama printed by CB Insights
DeepSeek R1 rivals OpenAI’s o1 in Synthetic Evaluation High quality Index at decrease value
Gaming is big, however do you know that Roblox is the dimensions of Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation COMBINED? It reaches 50% of US households.
The agent economic system. Panorama by Felicis (supply)
Europe’s VC shakeup. The European VC panorama is experiencing a big contraction, with a 30% drop in lively funds and a considerable lower in fundraising, suggesting a shift in direction of established gamers and specialised smaller companies. (supply: Sifted)
And at last, a healthful second of reduction and emotion for Emily, Romi and Doron. Could all of the households ready for his or her family members get to expertise this.
We’ve quite a bit to have a good time in our “small” group. 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 faculties and 50 libraries within the creating world.
