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If you happen to’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 pleasure within the accomplishment of the opposite individual. It’s the other of “schadenfreude” (which stands for being glad 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
It’s been 538 days since October seventh. It’s exhausting to compute that there are nonetheless 59 host***es held in G**a. Their households have been in a residing nightmare. I acquired an opportunity to shake the hand of Ruby Chen, a fellow VC and his spouse this week. Their son is certainly one of them. We should #BRINGTHEMHOME ??
This week Calcalist ??????? introduced the Israeli ecosystem collectively within the Huge Apple for a packed week of occasions celebrating Israeli tech. Regardless of the challenges the nation is going through (there have been sirens every day this week following missile launches from the Hutis in Yemen) , there was a optimistic environment and outlook in each dialog. Shaun Maguire mentioned on stage that he believes that Wiz is just the start and Israel can create a trillion greenback firm.
Within the wider tech world, OpenAI broke the Web this week with their new GPT 4o picture generator. Bloomberg reported that the corporate is near finalising a $40bn funding spherical led by SoftBank. Downloads of encrypted messaging app Sign Messenger soared after prime leaders within the US administration included a reporter from The Atlantic on a chat discussing conflict plans. The deadline for TikTok within the US is arising, and a brand new bidder appears to be Perplexity who’s bidding to purchase the corporate and needs to open-source the advice algorithm. Zoom began including agentic AI options to its video calls. Google has launched Gemini 2.5 Professional. That is their most superior mannequin but, and already #1 on the LMArena leaderboard. DeepSeek has upgraded its mannequin DeepSeek V3. This mannequin offers a rise in reasoning capabilities-compared to its earlier model. Microsoft has launched Researcher, which tackles advanced, multi-step analysis by combining OpenAI’s deep analysis mannequin with Microsoft 365 Copilot’s superior orchestration and deep search capabilities. Alibaba Group has launched LHM, their Giant Animatable Human Reconstruction mannequin. Can take a single picture and make a human dance… it additionally launched TaoAvatar. This AI can create lifelike 3D people you possibly can speak to in actual time AR. Chinese language corporations proceed to launch open supply AI fashions. Qwen has dropped three new fashions this week. A brand new AI mannequin, ECgMLP, detects endometrial most cancers with 99.26% accuracy.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Success isn’t last, failure isn’t deadly: it’s the braveness to proceed that counts.”
Winston Churchill
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congratulations Dan Amiga, Michael Fey and crew Island on securing a $250M collection E spherical (at a $4.8 billion valuation) to your safe enterprise browser!
- Kudos Ronen Lavi and crew Navina on securing a $55M collection C to your AI co-pilot for clinician diagnostics!
- Is it too early to congratulate Roi Tiger and his stealth crew on securing $55M in funding for a brand new cybersecurity startup in stealth? watch this area!
- Kol hakavod Didier Toubia and crew Aleph Farms on elevating $29M collection C to scale manufacturing of cultivated meat in your pilot facility!
- Superior information David Sosna and crew Sympera AI on elevating a $10M seed spherical to scale relationship banking with AI brokers!
- Nicely completed Roy Zur and crew Attraction Safety on popping out of stealth with an $8M seed spherical to cease AI-powered scams earlier than they occur!
- Mazal tov Yonatan Golan and crew Brevel on the extra $5M in funding, increasing your seed spherical to $25M to advance microalgae protein manufacturing!
EXITS
There have been no exits recorded this week (we’re nonetheless reeling from Wiz and Subsequent Insurance coverage anyway!)
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
ISRAEL
- Gili Raanan on the Make investments like the very best podcast – on taking Cyberstarts from $50M to $2 billion investing in Israeli tech
- Essentially the most promising Israeli development startups in 2025 by Qumra Capital
- “Proper now the neatest factor to do is to put money into Israel” – mentioned Shaun Maguire, Associate at Sequoia Capital.
GLOBAL
- The fourth version of the Europe and Israel’s Founder Factories, exploring the startups based by workers alumni of European and Israeli unicorns – created by Dealroom.co with Accel
- The 2025 shopper developments analysis report by The New Shopper
- NVIDIA‘s Jensen Huang breaks down why AI is essentially the most consequential know-how of all time – by Andreessen Horowitz
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
High nations (Israel + Europe) by enterprise backed unicorns
Highlight on Israel: 65 unicorns based in Israel have fuelled 380 startups throughout Europe and Israel. (supply)
Q1’25 has already tied the all-time excessive for $1B+ startup acquisitions by rely (11), matching the dot-com peak (Q1 2000) and the ZIRP increase (This fall 2020). However in deal worth, it’s not even shut. Due to Google’s $33B acquisition of Wiz, the quarter’s whole has hit $54.5B — a 44% soar over the earlier document. By CB Insights
It’s been a few days since OpenAI launched its new picture creation engine in ChatGPT, and the principle use case that unfold like wildfires is creating photos within the model of Japanese animation Studio Ghibli (the corporate behind “Spirited Away,” “My Neighbor Totoro”) (supply)
US Seed stage panorama in 2024 – how did the assorted sectors fare? by Carta
YouTube captured 11.6% of all U.S. TV time in Feb (supply)
Requests for startups within the Edtech area (by Emerge VC)
DeepSeek V3 replace emerges as highest-scoring non-reasoning mannequin
Gen Z stopped consuming alcohol…
Meet Blue – Nvidia and Disney Analysis new cute (however sensible) robotic
That’s all for this week. Thanks for tuning in. There’s loads to rejoice in our “small” group. Carry on creating!
I am a former basic 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 faculties and 50 libraries within the creating world.
