The unique model of this text was revealed on Linkedin.
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 pleasure within the accomplishment of the opposite particular person. It’s the other of “schadenfreude”. Firgun is all about genuinely feeling and expressing happiness, pleasure, or admiration for another person’s accomplishments, success, or well-being. Extra about Firgun and why it issues on VC Cafe: https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p
I’m sharing this version of #Firgun from a aircraft. I used to be in Helsinki this week and met a large number of European and US VCs, LPs and founders. I’m unsure if it has to do with me, however refreshingly, Israel didn’t come up in any respect aside from the occasional query of how’s my household. It’s an excellent reminder that to heal, and transfer ahead, we should undertake a ‘enterprise as regular’ method. Maintain constructing, investing and planning for a greater future. It’s additionally a reminder that we’re all on this collectively. We have now to assist one another and don’t overlook that there’s folks that want our assist. We should #BRINGTHEMHOME
Within the wider tech world, Microsoft turned 50 this week, xAI raised one other $6 billion (at a $50 billion valuation) to compete with ChatGPT, Databricks is trying to elevate $8 billion to purchase worker inventory, Google will seemingly need to divest of Chrome following the DOJ determination to curb monopoly, NVIDIA has doubled its income over the previous yr (however progress slowed), Apple is engaged on ‘Siri LLM’ to compete with ChatGPT, Bluesky Social, the Xitter competitor gained 1m customers final week and reached 20M customers. Chinese language LLMs are getting higher and Deepseek AI launched a brand new mannequin that may ‘motive’ which is on par with OpenAI o1-preview. @perple VC returns can solely go up (I hope) as 2023 VCs eturned the bottom degree of capital to their buyers since 2011.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The cheap man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in attempting to adapt the world to himself. Due to this fact, all progress relies on the unreasonable man”
George Bernard Shaw
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congratulations Yotam Segev and group Cyera in your spectacular $300M collection D, doubling the corporate’s worth to $3 billion to be the Crowstrike of knowledge safety!
- Mazel tov Israel (Srulik) Dvorsky and group TailorMed on securing a $40M to attach sufferers with monetary support options!
- Nicely performed Assaf Rappaport and group Wiz in your undisclosed spherical of funding to proceed the journey of because the quickest rising Israeli startup in historical past!
- Approach to go Itamar Golan and group Immediate Safety in your $18M collection A to assist firms safe their generative AI instruments!
- Kudos Yehuda Niv and group Spines in your $16.5M collection A to assist authors self-publish their books with the assistance of AI!
- Nice milestone Dvir Hoffman and group CommBox in your $15M collection B to construct the way forward for buyer expertise powered by AI!
- Thumbs up Benny Porat and group Twine Safety on popping out of stealth with a $12M seed spherical to automate safety duties beginning with identification administration!
- Kol hakavod Liav Georgy and group Oraqon on securing a $10M seed spherical for a really secret defence tech product associated to sensors (keep tuned for extra)
- Good news Dov Gertz and group Converge Bio in your $5.5M seed spherical to speed up drug discovery and improvement with AI!
- Good things Rohi Hourvitz and group FertilAI on securing a $4.5M seed spherical to scale your AI-powered scientific determination assist instruments for fertility!
EXITS
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
ISRAEL
- Sequoia Capital companion Shaun Maguire on why the enterprise capital fund has resumed operations in Israel for the reason that begin of the struggle, after closing its workplace right here in 2016.
- Oracle CEO Safra Catz: “Israel will likely be flooded with investments after the struggle“
- Podcast: Constructing Wiz, the quickest rising startup in historical past – by Lenny Rachitsky
- BONUS: Israel’s tech AI ecosystem report by Startup Nation Central
GLOBAL
- State of company enterprise capital report by SVB
- The state of Generative AI within the Enterprise by Menlo Ventures
- AI Eats the world presentation – by Benedict Evans
- BONUS: “Breaking the mildew: Sample Breakers e book overview” – by me on VC Cafe
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
AI startups demonstrated higher resilience in comparison with non-AI counterparts
The variety of lively AI firms noticed a exceptional enhance of over 170%, rising from 783 firms in 2014 to 2170 in 2023, whereas the variety of non-AI firms grew by solely 12%. In 2018 the variety of lively non-AI firms reached its peak after which began to descend. On the similar time, lively AI firms continued to develop, reaching a peak in 2022.
SAFE is king. Almost 90% of Q3 2024 seed rounds have been performed utilizing SAFEs (supply Carta)
CVCs are obsessive about AI. Asia continues to be the biggest marketplace for CVC funding, accounting for 39% of all offers. by SVB
Fashionable AI stack – the rising constructing blocks for AI
Aerospace and defence market map (supply)
The brand new unicorns of 2024 to this point
My first Slush is a wrap. Small Israeli presence however giant US presence of LPs and GPs. Learn my takeaways.
That’s all for this week, thanks for studying. There’s rather a lot to have fun in our “small” group. Carry on creating!
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 faculties and 50 libraries within the growing world.
