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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 delight within the accomplishment of the opposite individual. It’s the other of “schadenfreude”. Firgun is all about genuinely feeling and expressing happiness, delight, 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
This week, the physique of Itay Svirksky was recovered from G**a and introduced for burial in Israel in a particular operation, and new proof confirmed that American/Israeli Omer Neutra, who moved to Israel from Lengthy Island and was thought to have been held hostage, was killed on Oct seven 2023 and his physique is held in G**a. Could their reminiscences be a blessing. We should #BRINGTHEMHOME NOW.
Regardless of the struggle, Israel’s expertise business offered report figures for mergers and acquisitions based on a brand new report from Classic Funding Companions. M&A offers set a brand new peak this 12 months of $10.5 billion, 22% increased than the earlier peak of $8.6 billion in 2021.
Within the wider tech world, there’s been a continuous string of bulletins by massive tech gamers. Amazon introduced Jeff Bezos again from retirement and he’ll be spending most of his time on AI. Amazon Net Providers (AWS) launched Nova, a household of multimodal AI fashions designed to energy textual content, picture, and video technology with pace and effectivity in addition to textual content producing fashions. Google‘s a lot anticipated AI video technology mannequin Veo is now accessible on Vertex AI in personal preview. Staying on video: Tencent dropped Hunyuan Video, new open supply AI text-to-video mannequin which appears to supply prime quality. Microsoft launched co-pilot imaginative and prescient, a instrument that learn your display and act as a private helper (US-only). OpenAI began their 12 days of bulletins with the launch of ChatGTP Professional, a brand new $200-per-month subscription tier that gives limitless entry to all of OpenAI’s fashions. It additionally introduced a partnership with Anduril Industries. Google additionally launched Genie-2, expertise that may generate playable digital worlds from pictures. Publicly traded dutch firm Nebius introduced it has raised $700M from VCs and strategics like NVIDIA to construct out a full-stack AI infrastructure – together with large-scale GPU clusters, cloud platforms and instruments and companies for builders. Bitcoin crossed the $100K mark for the primary time this week. Google DeepMind launched GenCast, a really correct climate forecasting mannequin. ElevenLabs now gives the power to constructing conversational AI brokers. A choose dominated that Elon Musk is just not entitled to the $56 billion Tesla bonus, however don’t fear, SpaceX worth jumped to $350 billion this week, up $100B from final month. Final however not least Spotify turned the primary European firm to hit a $100 billion market cap.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Know-how and science are our strongest diplomatic instruments. They transcend borders and join humanity.” – Prof. Eliat Shemesh, Interdisciplinary Analysis Chief
NEW VENTURE ROUNDS
- Now it’s confirmed, it’s time to congratulate Amiram Shachar and crew Upwind Safety on their $100M collection B at a $900M valuation for his or her cloud safety platform!
- Kol hakavod Dave Waiser and crew Accumulator on elevating $46M to assist founders navigate illiquid wealth with an fairness pooling platform!
- Nicely carried out Zohar H. and crew D-Fend Options on securing $31M in funding for his or her RF cyber-takeover methods to securely neutralise rogue drones with out collateral injury!
- Congrats Brian Verrier and crew OSSIO on elevating a $27.6M collection D to interchange steel implants as the usual of care!
- Kudos Gadi Shenhar and crew Droxi on elevating a $21M collection A to assist docs handle administrative burdens!
- Technique to go Alon Mashkovich and crew enSights on securing $10M collection A for an AI-powered, cloud-based clear vitality optimisation and administration platform!
- Mazel tov Or Israel and crew bananaz on popping out of stealth with $5.3M seed funding on your platform targeted on design change administration for R&D and engineering groups!
- Thumbs up Gadi Benjamini and crew Firedome in your $4.5M seed spherical to remodel autonomous wildfire defence!
EXITS
NEW FUNDS
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
Israel:
World:
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
It’s time to construct. Three month common VC funding of Israeli startups are on the up development. By Startup Nation Central.
Regardless of information serving because the cornerstone of each choice, many establishments are grappling with legacy infrastructures, fragmented techniques, and inconsistent information practices. Startups (and AI) are right here to assist. Take a look at the Monetary companies AI information market map by Perception Companions (supply)
Solely 50% of seed corporations graduate to collection A based on information by Carta
However, on a constructive word, VC funding is up 17% in comparison with the equal interval in 2023. Many of the improve is being pushed by late stage investments, and early stage (pre-seed to collection A) is both flat or barely down.
A lot of attention-grabbing information within the marketech gen ai survey. For instance, check out the preferred use circumstances of Gen AI within the enterprise. (supply)
Staying on Advertising and marketing tech – Advertising and marketing’s self-driving second: Techniques of Brokers will put an business on autopilot by Basis Capital (supply)
Enterprise capital is at a crossroads. A lot much less funds get raised. What’s subsequent for the early stage enterprise capital ecosystem? Three attention-grabbing situations shared by Precursor Ventures‘s Charles Hudson (supply)
When folks speak in regards to the ‘creator economic system’, there’s OnlyFans and all the remaining. Since 2019, OnlyFans has paid out at the very least $21.5B to creators ($6B in 2024 alone) – by Matthew Ball (supply)
That’s all for this week. There’s a lot 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 colleges and 50 libraries within the creating world.
