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In case you’re new right here, the phrase “Firgun” (pronounced ‘feer-goon’) is an off-the-cuff fashionable Hebrew time period and idea in Israeli tradition (initially Yiddish), which describes real, unselfish delight or delight within the accomplishment of the opposite individual. It’s the other of “schadenfreude” (which stands for being joyful for another person’s misfortune). Firgun is all about genuinely feeling and expressing happiness, delight, or admiration for members of our group’s accomplishments, success and wins. Extra about Firgun and why it issues on VC Cafe: https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p
We woke as much as a brand new actuality this morning. After negotiations with Iran hit a roadblock, Israel launched a pre-emptive assault to neutralise Iran’s nuclear weapon improvement. A response is certain to come back, with colleges cancelled and air area in Israel shut. The ‘selfie flotilla’ was additionally stopped this week, with Greta Thunberg and others deported. She claims she was kidnapped, however there are precise Israeli hostages held in G**a for over 2 years. Their time is operating out. We should #BRINGTHEMHOME ??
You’d assume it’s exhausting sufficient to run a tech startup whereas coping with tariffs, a difficult enterprise capital market, incumbents leaning in exhausting on AI and the day after day of operating a enterprise. However while you, on high of all of that, add the challenges of your nation being at conflict, dealing with ballistic missile assaults and what not, it provides ‘difficult’ a brand new which means. However, this week Cyera raised over half a billion {dollars} and VAST Information is elevating funding at a $25 billion valuation. A reminder that Israeli tech delivers #NOMATTERWHAT.
On the time of writing this text giant components of the Web are all the way down to a mysterious malfunction together with Google, AWS and Spotify as reported by customers to Downdector. Meta paid $15 billion to amass 49% of Scale AI and founder Alexandr Wang shall be heading up a lab to pursue superintelligence for Meta… Apple relaunched its AI ambitions at WWDC 2025, however to date underwhelmed. The corporate goals to use AI to completely automate advert creation by 2026. Practically half of the startups in Y Combinator‘s new cohort (67 out of 144) concentrate on AI brokers. Salesforce is blocking AI rivals from storing or looking out Slack messages – maybe we are going to see extra of this ‘protectionism’. Tesla delayed robotaxis launch in Austin Texas. Mistral AI launched a vibe coding agent and a pair of reasoning fashions. The Walt Disney Firm and Comcast teamed as much as sue the artificial-intelligence startup Midjourney, accusing it of copyright infringement. OpenAI hits $10 billion in annualised income fuelled by ChatGPT progress. Tencent simply launched HunyuanVideo-Avatar and slashed VRAM necessities by 87%. ByteDance (TikTok’s mother or father co) has launched a brand new video era mannequin referred to as SeedDance that they declare is healthier than Veo-3.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Israel is the one nation on the planet whose proper to exist is questioned. And we’re not going to apologize for defending our nation.” – President Shimon Peres
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Large congrats Yotam Segev and workforce Cyera in your spectacular $540M collection E at a $6 billion valuation on your AI-integrated knowledge safety platform!
- Kudos Amir Elichai and workforce Carbyne on elevating $100M collection D on your cloud resolution transforms emergency calls into data-rich, real-time response techniques.
- Properly achieved Dor Eisner and workforce Guardz on securing a $56M collection B to reinforce your AI-native, unified cybersecurity platform for managed service suppliers (MSPs)
- Improbable information Alon Chen and workforce Tastewise in your $50M collection B on your AI-powered platform to research meals and beverage developments and in real-time!
- Nice buzz Saar Safra and workforce Beewise in your $50M collection D to scale your AI and robotics instruments to deal with declining bee populations!
- Method to go Gal Sagie and workforce Hypernative in your $40M collection B to take away the safety threats to Web3 mass adoption!
- Mazel tov Man Ezekiel and workforce Zorro in your $20M collection A to rework the healthcare advantages business!
- Good things Maor Ezer and workforce ai.work on securing a $10M seed spherical to carry autonomous AI to enterprise workflows!
- Congratulations Ben Luria and workforce Hirundo on elevating an $8M seed spherical to scale back hallucinations and bias in LLMs!
- Superior milestone Yoni Benshaul and workforce Dreamhub on elevating a $7M seed spherical for an AI native CRM designed for B2B SaaS!
- Thumbs up Ran Ben – David and workforce Unibeam Authentication Options on securing a $6M seed spherical to develop SIM-based authentication know-how!
- Kol hakavod Lior Albeck and workforce Weavy on popping out of stealth with a $4M seed spherical to assist design professionals automate the video and pictures enhancing workflow!
- Nice information Elliot Katz and workforce mixus on elevating $2.6M seed spherical for a colleague verification AI agent builder!
- Good going Tal Atarot and workforce NimBio in your $2M seed spherical on your non-invasive AI-powered Inflammometer to foretell IBD flares earlier than they strike!
EXITS
APPOINTMENTS
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
VC CAFE/ REMAGINE VENTURES
- The collection A crunch simply bought tighter. Thank (or blame) GenAI – new benchmarks by A16Z present that even for those who’re firm isn’t in GenAI, you’re being to in comparison with them and the bar is greater by way of income and velocity.
- Steve Clean at LBS: Classes from a lean startup legend – thought of one of many fathers of the lean startup and buyer improvement motion which impressed a number of the ethos prior to now 15 years, Steve Clean dished some truths on entrepreneurship, Silicon Valley vs. Europe and the AI revolution. Price a learn!
- Betting on folks: what VCs search for on the pre-seed stage: the inexperienced and crimson flags that pre-seed traders assess from the primary assembly
ISRAEL
- Andreessen Horowitz targets elite IDF alumni for startup accelerator
- The 2025 Power tech panorama map by Startup Nation Central
- International Startup Ecosystem Rating 2025 report by Startup Genome ranks Tel Aviv in 4th place globally
GLOBAL
- The mild Singularity – by Sam Altman
- The Way forward for Enterprise Capital – A podcast with Marc Andreessen on the Evolution of the Enterprise Playbook, fund dimension and difficult conventional funding approaches
- Europe VC outlook 2025 – by Classic Funding Companions
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
Tel Aviv ranks 4th within the International Startup Ecosystem Report 2025 by Startup Genome (supply)
The 2025 Israeli Power tech map by Startup Nation Central was added to my VC Cafe assortment. There are 350 corporations within the vitality sector in Israel, and so they’ve raised $400M prior to now years alone. The panorama map options 165 startups in eight key subsectors: Power Era, Power Storage, Behind-the-Meter, Grid Infrastructure (Transmission & Distribution), Hydrogen, Cybersecurity (OT techniques), Carbon Seize & Storage (CCUS), and Waste-to-X.
The Web is DOWN (supply)
OpenAI hits $10 billion in annualized income fueled by ChatGPT progress and a knowledge pattern from Ramp it’s clear to see how far forward they’re in subscriptions in comparison with their competitors. (supply)
Probably the most worthwhile European non-public startups by HQ, nation by nation.
The collection A crunch is actual and even when your startup isn’t a GenAI firm, it’s being in comparison with GenAI corporations. The bar for income has gone up, in response to new benchmarks launched by Andreessen Horowitz (extra on this on my VC Cafe put up)
Information from 9,000+ startups that raised rounds since 2021 says the median choice pool after a Seed spherical sits at ~12% in response to Carta
The expertise wars in AI are heating up and high expertise is being supplied tens of millions to affix. Anthropic has the very best ~80% retention 2 years in and is the #1 (giant) firm high AI researchers desires to go in response to SignalFire
Takeaways on the state of Shopper AI from a current A16Z podcast – backside line – now it’s a good time to be constructing on this area. (supply)
The variations between search engine marketing and GEO (generative engine optimisation) in response to Vercel (supply)
The open-source toolkit for constructing AI Brokers. Full breakdown with GitHub repos hyperlinks https://lnkd.in/g3fntJVc
That’s all for this week. There’s rather a lot to rejoice in our “small” group. Carry on creating and be secure.
I am a former normal companion 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.
