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The phrase “Firgun” (Hebrew: ??????/ 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 particular person. It’s the alternative of “schadenfreude”. Firgun is all about genuinely feeling and expressing happiness, delight, or admiration for another person’s accomplishments, luck, or well-being. Extra about Firgun and why it issues on VC Cafe: https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p
The most important second of the previous week was little question Trump’s capturing. No matter your political stance, it’s scary to assume how shut somebody received to hitting a presidential candidate within the largest democracy on this planet, and take into account the sequence of occasions that led to that second. Footage of feminine Israeli hostages emerged this week, and it’s arduous not to consider their nightmare existence for the previous 9 months and that of their households. We should #BRINGTHEMHOME Now.
The tech ecosystem is essential for Israel’s financial system. It’s liable for 40% of GDP development and 53% of exports over the previous 5 years. In line with a brand new report by Startup Nation Central, the Israeli tech ecosystem defied the chances in H1 2024. It recorded a 31% enhance in funding in comparison with the identical interval final yr, with funding reaching $5.1 billion throughout 322 rounds and exits up 70% in comparison with H2 2023. Overseas buyers doubled down on Israel, collaborating in 93% of the rounds. An enormous signal of that confidence is Google‘s rumoured acquisition of Wiz for a document $23 billion. Israel’s greatest exit and Google’s largest acquisition ever. One more instance on how Israeli tech delivers #NOMATTERWHAT.
Within the wider tech world, as we speak hundreds of thousands of Home windows primarily based computer systems received the blue error display, affecting banks, airways, hospitals and many others, attributable to a defective replace from CrowdStrike. OpenAI is speaking to chip designers and introduced it can work on a ‘search product’, NVIDIA and Mistral AI launched Nemo, a brand new highly effective open-source mannequin, Amazon made a document $14.2 billion in income for ‘Prime Day’ is rolling out ‘Rufus’ generative AI assistant to all U.S. prospects and Microsoft new AI system ‘SpreadsheetLLM’ unlocks insights from spreadsheets. Silicon valley is splitting into camps, with some publicly supporting Trump, together with Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen.
Lastly, there’s rather a lot we will be taught from Gareth Southgate, England’s nationwide crew coach who stepped down this week after dropping to Spain within the Euro 2024 finals. He led a turnaround for over a decade, he introduced unity and set the ethos that the crew is extra vital than the people – one thing our political leaders can nonetheless internalise. Thanks Gareth!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“We are able to’t clear up issues through the use of the sort of pondering we used after we created them” – Albert Einstein
NEW INVESTMENT ROUNDS
- Congratulations David H. and crew CytoReason on elevating $80M sequence F to additional develop your computational illness fashions for drug discovery!
- Nicely performed Oded Nagel and crew CTERA on securing $80M sequence E to your hybrid cloud information administration platform!
- Kudos Yuval Golan and crew Waltz in your $12.5M sequence A to assist overseas buyers buy property within the US with extra ease!
- Good job Daniel Levitats and crew Nanopass Applied sciences Ltd. on elevating $6M in funding to your intradermal supply options!
- Method to go Moshe Barel and crew AccuLine on elevating a $4.2M seed spherical to detect coronary illness utilizing ML!
EXITS
APPOINTMENTS
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
Israel:
- The H1 2024 report by Startup Nation Central
- Israeli tech defies the chances in 2024 by me on VC Cafe
- Meta revamps hate speech coverage and understands that when folks say ‘Zionists’ they imply ‘Jews’
International:
- State of enterprise tech 2024 report by Perception Companions
- State of the union tech keynote by Coatue
- Client tendencies report H1 2024 by The New Client and Coefficient Capital
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
Buyers are set to make some huge cash from the document acquisition of Wiz however nobody deserves extra kudos than Gili Raanan and Cyberstarts who seeded the corporate and his stake is price $900M
Israel’s H1 2024 tech report snapshot
Defence tech is on the rise worldwide and Israel could be a important participant – try the primary panorama (supply) it was added to my 2024 Panorama assortment on VC Cafe
An up to date H1 2024 Israeli maritime tech panorama by theDOCK lists over 100 startups. it was added to my 2024 Panorama assortment on VC Cafe
Investments in AI startups greater than doubled in Q2 2024
Even earlier than the rumoured Wiz acquisition for $23 billion, there have been over 14 $100+ cyber acquisitions over the previous yr globally. Astonishingly, 13 of them had been Israeli startups (I consider the numbers have since gone up). Nearly all sub $5M ARR in keeping with Bessemer Enterprise Companions.
Think about when you had a superhuman assistant in your job and to your private duties… (supply)
How shut did the bullet get? (loopy visualisation)
https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/standing/1813327557582020947
That’s all for this week, thanks for studying. There’s rather a lot to have a good time in our “small” neighborhood! Carry on creating.
I am a former basic 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 help of Room to Learn. Since inception in 2012 we have constructed 11 colleges and 50 libraries within the growing world.
