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The phrase “Firgun” (Hebrew: ??????/ 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 delight within the accomplishment of the opposite individual. 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
I landed this morning from a couple of days in Singapore. It’s spectacular to see what the self described ‘little crimson dot’ completed in its 65 years of independence and I couldn’t keep away from evaluating and contrasting to Israel. Whereas no politics was mentioned on the journey, it impressed me about being purposeful as a nation with regards to well being, training, funding, local weather and so on and incentivising the most effective individuals to enter civil service.
293 days handed since October seventh. 115 Israeli hostages stay in G*z*. This week, 5 our bodies have been recovered by the IDF. We should #BRINGTHEMHOME, each final one of many hostages, NOW.
Within the tech world, Israeli startup Wiz turned down the $23 billion acquisition provide from Google and opted for going public as an alternative. It’s a daring transfer, however many imagine that it’s higher for the business.
The CrowdStrike international outage is estimated to have value Fortune 500 firms $5.4bn. OpenAI goes face to face with Google with a brand new search product known as SearchGPT. So as to add extra warmth, Microsoft launched generative AI search outcomes for Bing. Mistral AI launched two new open-source LLM fashions (Nemo in partnership with NVIDIA) and Massive 2. AI at Meta launched LLaMa 3.1, essentially the most highly effective open supply LLM to this point. Builders can fine-tune, distill and deploy it wherever. Stability AI launched Video4D, a multi angle video era mannequin, and Kling, the Chinese language competitor of Sora is now publicly obtainable.
Good luck to all of the Israeli athletes representing the nation within the 2024 Paris Olympics, amid threats and protests.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Don’t rely the times, make the times rely” – Muhammad Ali
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congrats David Israeli, MD and crew Magenta Medical Ltd. on the $105M sequence E to create the world’s smartest coronary heart pump!
- Nice information Merav Bahat and crew Dazz in your $50M sequence B to speed up AI-powered cloud safety remediation!
- Kol hakavod Itai Hayut and crew Scopio Labs on securing a $42M sequence D for for AI-based blood cell evaluation!
- Huge respect Moshiel Biton and crew Addionics in your $39M sequence B to your cost-effective and high-performance batteries to energy the way forward for EVs!
- Spectacular information Shely Aronov and crew InnerPlant in your $30M sequence B to your plant DNA implantation to enhance misery signalling!
- Congratulations Israel Duanis and crew Linx Safety on popping out of stealth with a $27M sequence A (and beforehand undisclosed $6M seed spherical) to your id safety platform!
- Thrilling milestone Dan Deviri and crew CarbonBlue on elevating a $10M seed spherical to your water based mostly carbon elimination (CDR) know-how!
- Mazel tov Snir Ben Shimol and crew ZEST Safety on securing a $5M seed spherical to your cloud danger decision platform!
- Good job Amiad Solomon and crew HQ on the undisclosed strategic spherical to energy enterprise journey applications!
EXITS
APPOINTMENTS
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
Israel:
- Regulatory danger was a consider Wiz-Google deal cancellation
- Iranian hackers threaten Israeli athletes at Paris Olympics in new cyber marketing campaign
- Mapping Israel protection tech panorama
International:
- European VCs outperform US VCs over 10 and 15 yr horizons
- State of startup compensation report H1 2024 from Carta
- 2024 tech traits report by McKinsey & Firm
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
The Israeli Defence tech panorama was added to my assortment on VC Cafe (see right here)
Previous however gold. 608 (27%) out of two,321 unicorn founders with knowledge on an undergraduate diploma obtained it exterior the US. The highest 3 universities who produced these founders are Israeli: Tel Aviv College , Technion – Israel Institute of Expertise and The Hebrew College of Jerusalem, in keeping with analysis by Ilya Strebulaev
Viola fintech monetary establishments belief report (supply)
Huge quantity. Extra knowledge created in final 3 years than in all of historical past, in keeping with Blackstone.
The US at the moment has greater than 2.5x the information heart capability of Europe, and file quantities of information heart capability is being constructed within the US in order that hole will widen. Europe is certainly various years behind on that.
The AI Agent and automation startup panorama by Perception Companions (supply)
The brand new open supply LLM LLaMa 3.1 by Meta is the most recent climax within the open vs. closed debate in AI and foundational fashions (supply) – the mannequin exceeds Claude 3.5 and GPT-4o in some cases
The IPO window visualised
Stunning (or not). US video blogger Zach Sage Fox went to the West Financial institution to interview members of the general public. (He’s been getting threats ever since publishing this video)
That’s all for this week. Thanks for studying. There’s loads to have a good time in our “small” group. Carry on creating.
I am a former basic accomplice 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 faculties and 50 libraries within the growing world.
