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If you happen to’re new right here, 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 other of “schadenfreude” (which stands for being joyful for another person’s misfortune). Firgun is all about genuinely feeling and expressing happiness, pleasure, or admiration for members of our group’s accomplishments, luck and wins. Extra about Firgun and why it issues on VC Cafe: https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p
For the hundreds of thousands of Israelis speeding to the shelters in the course of the evening, this week was a transparent reminder that the ceasefire is over. There are nonetheless 59 Israelis held host**ge in G**a (over 21 are alive) and we should #BRINGTHEMHOME ??
The acquisition of Wiz by Google for $32 billion in money this week made waves throughout the entire tech ecosystem in Israel and past. It was Israel’s largest exit thus far. It was Google’s largest acquisition thus far (in actual fact it’s bigger than all their largest acquisitions COMBINED). It stands as the biggest VC-backed exit through acquisition in historical past, per Dealroom.co knowledge. It created 1,700 new millionaires. Gili Raanan remodeled a $6.4M funding into $1.3 billion (225x, in line with estimates). The record goes on. The truth that Wiz walked away from a earlier provide of $23 billion, and the timing of this acquisition (given the whole lot else occurring in Israel) makes this achievement much more exceptional and a testomony to the standard and attractiveness of Israeli entrepreneurs, primarily in cybersecurity. It was not the one multi billion greenback exit this week…. see under about Subsequent Insurance coverage.
Huge information this week within the wider tech world. NVIDIA introduced DGX Station “private AI supercomputer” with new Blackwell Extremely GPU and in addition launched the Groot N1, the primary open-weight foundational mannequin for humanoid robotics. As well as Nvidia has launched Llama Nemotron Nano, Tremendous, and Extremely “open” reasoning fashions. OpenAI launched 3 new audio fashions – 2 new speech-to-text fashions and a brand new text-to-speech mannequin. Mistral AI launched Small 3.1 as new open-weight AI mannequin to tackle GPT-4o Mini, and Google’s Gemma 3. Google dropped Thoughts Maps for NotebookLM. Immediately flip your notes into visible diagrams. Anthropic‘s Claude launched net search. Baidu, Inc. launched Ernie X1 reasoning AI mannequin to counter DeepSeek R1. Stability AI has launched Secure Digital Digital camera, turning 2D photos into 3D video. SpatialLM simply dropped on Hugging Face – a Massive Language Mannequin for Spatial Understanding. CoreWeave is planning to elevate $2.7 billion in its upcoming IPO. Meta‘s Llama fashions hit 1 billion downloads. Spotify paid musicians and creators of its platform $10bn in 2024 in line with its annual report. The 2 NASA – Nationwide Aeronautics and House Administration astronauts are lastly again on Earth 9 months after getting caught in house on the ISS…
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Don’t go the place the trail might lead, go as an alternative the place there isn’t any path and depart a path.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
NEW FUNDING DEALS
- Huge congrats Shay Sandler and workforce Vega Safety on elevating $65M in two successive funding rounds for a more practical strategy to cyberattack detection!
- Congratulations Shachar Bialick and workforce Curve on securing a $48M sequence D to simplify the way in which folks spend, ship, see and get monetary savings!
- Wonderful information Alon Dror, Hamutal Meridor and workforce Kela Applied sciences on popping out of stealth with $39 million in funding ($11M seed and $28M sequence A) in your Defence tech startup devoted to defending Israel and our Western allies!
- Kudos Bentzi Rabi and workforce Utila in your $18M sequence A in your safe and chain-agnostic crypto pockets infrastructure!
- Great things Yair Levy and workforce mind.house on securing an $11M sequence A in your transportable EEG headset!
- Method to go Tal Chalozin and workforce 257 on popping out of stealth with a $9.2 million seed spherical to construct a digital twin of each American dwelling with a imaginative and prescient to rework how houses are powered!
- Effectively executed Nitay Milner and workforce Orion Safety in your $6M seed spherical for an AI-based knowledge safety platform!
- Mazal tov David Priev and workforce LimitlessCNC on securing a $4.1M seed spherical to convey AI to precision manufacturing!
EXITS
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
ISRAEL
- From Unit 8200 to Wiz’s $32B exit: The blueprint for Israeli cyber success – what makes Israeli entrepreneurs so efficient?
- Israel’s cyber sector defies turmoil, elevating $3.79 billion in 2024, a 56% surge – by Calcalist ???????
- Israel within the New Center East: Financial Resurgence and Tech Renaissance – report by Jefferies
GLOBAL
- Don’t sleep on Shopper Tech: AI is altering the whole lot – how B2C corporations are going from ‘client is tough’ to ‘client is scorching’ with knowledge from: Bessemer Enterprise Companions NFX Main Enterprise Companions Andreessen Horowitz and extra. By me on VC Cafe.
- The 2025 European Deep Tech report – by Dealroom.co
- The financial worth of Open Supply Software program is $8.8 trillion – research by Harvard College
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
Wiz stands as the biggest VC-backed exit through acquisition in historical past (supply) The deal is anticipated to shut subsequent 12 months, barring any regulatory hurdles.
Google’s acquisition of Wiz simply mixed all of its earlier acquisitions—DoubleClick, YouTube, Motorola, Nest, Looker, and others—totalling roughly $31+ billion.
The most important winners from the Wiz acquisition… (based mostly on publicly out there knowledge)
Younger Israelis beneath 30 ranked 2nd happiest within the latest World happiness report created by the UN (supply)
The AI race is on between China and the US, however a fast take a look at Robotics clearly reveals that China has an edge (for now)
McKinsey & Firm surveyed enterprise AI adoption: advertising and marketing and customer support are the preferred classes for generative AI within the enterprise to this point (supply)
MCP is an open protocol that enables programs to supply context to AI fashions in a fashion that’s generalizable throughout integrations. Under is the startup panorama for MCP and the way forward for AI tooling in line with Andreessen Horowitz (supply)
The focus of enterprise capital: 31% of All VC Cash Final Yr Went Into Simply 20 Offers in line with report by Redpoint (supply)
Eli Sharabi spoke to the UN Safety Council this week – watch his highly effective testimony.
A Trump impressed drone present in Florida went viral… but it surely’s unknown who’s behind it.
That’s all for this week, thanks for tuning in. There’s quite a bit to rejoice in our “small” group. Carry on creating.
I am a former normal 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 assist of Room to Learn. Since inception in 2012 we have constructed 11 colleges and 50 libraries within the growing world.
