It’s #Firgun time. The unique model of this article was posted on Linkedin 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 satisfaction within the accomplishment of the opposite particular person. It’s the alternative of “schadenfreude”. Firgun is all about genuinely feeling and expressing happiness, satisfaction, 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
392 days after October 7. Arduous to know. October was the deadliest month for Israelis for the reason that starting of the battle. A ceasefire supply, offering protected passage for H***s in return for the hostages was turned down by the phobia organisation. In Lebanon, Hello*****ah continues to shoot rockets geared toward civilians in Israel and Iran has as soon as extra threatened a ‘devastating response’ earlier than the US elections. There are nonetheless 101 Israeli hostages held in G**a. We should #BRINGTHEMHOME.
Yesterday was Halloween (additionally my birthday) and Israeli startups have definitely obtained lots of ‘sweet’. As if in a parallel universe to the battle, over the previous week alone Israeli startups raised over $500M in investments. As you’ll be able to see from the SNC report under, non-public funding in Q1-Q3 2024 grew by 30% in contrast the equal interval final 12 months (pre-war), and M&A offers surged to $11.9 billion—up 39% from Q1-Q3 2023. This underscores the Israeli ecosystem’s capacity to draw investor confidence, even amidst market instability and battle. Are there big challenges? completely. Will the Israeli startup ecosystem overcome them? I’ve little doubt. Israeli startups ship #NOMATTERWHAT
Within the wider tech and AI ecosystem it’s been one other momentous week. OpenAI is now going face to face with Google with ChatGPT search (combines internet search and generated outcomes). xAI now has the world’s largest AI supercomputer, in partnership with NVIDIA, the corporate additionally launched Grok2, it’s latest mannequin which outperforms GPT-4o in some use circumstances like Math. Sana, a brand new AI mannequin launched by NVIDIA , runs high-quality 4K picture era on consumer-grade {hardware}. Apple rolled out Apple Intelligence throughout iPhone, iPad, and Mac gadgets. Meta launched MobileLLM. GitHub copilot is increasing past OpenAI and likewise supporting AI fashions from Google and Anthropic. It launched Spark, an AI instrument that helps anybody construct internet apps. Russia superb on Google is largest than the world’s complete GDP (!). The corporate has launched a brand new product known as Google Study About. ElevenLabs has created an app that generates a distinctive voice primarily based in your X profile. Self driving automotive firm Waymo, a Google spin-off, raised $5.6 billion in funding and Pacific Fusion raised a $900M sequence A for fusion power.
In world information, we’re 3 days away from probably the most consequential elections within the historical past of the world. Flash floods in Valencia, Spain have claimed the lives of 95 individuals and created apocalyptic scenes. Iran threatened it would deal Israel a ‘devastating blow’ even earlier than the US elections.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“In the event you search for the sunshine, you’ll be able to typically discover it. However for those who search for the darkish, that’s all you’ll ever see.” – Iroh from “Avatar: The Final Airbender”
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
Quite a bit to undergo after the Jewish Excessive holidays – buckle up!
- Massive congrats Yevgeny Dibrov and staff Armis in your $200M sequence D (at a valuation of $4.3 billion), to guard the complete assault floor of corporations!
- Mabruk Matan Bar and staff Melio in your $150M sequence E (at $2 billion valuation) to combine money circulate administration, accounts receivable and accounts payable options!
- Congratulations Elad Raz and staff NextSilicon for popping out of stealth with a $100M sequence C spherical (and over $300M raised up to now) to create the following era of AI semiconductors, beginning with Maverick 2!
- Spectacular stuff Ori Tamuz and staff DoorLoop on elevating $100M sequence B to speed up its journey to be the central platform for property administration!
- Unbelievable information Ben Kliger and staff Zenity on securing a $38M sequence B to safe enterprise copilots!
- Properly completed Amir Danino and staff INNOVENTRIC on elevating a $28.5M sequence B to enhance affected person outcomes for tricuspid regurgitation (TR) by utilizing minimally invasive therapies!
- Massive congrats Niv Braun and staff Noma Safety on popping out of stealth with a $25M sequence A (bringing the overall of $32M raised up to now which was beforehand undisclosed) to determine susceptible information pipelines and code in information science environments, in addition to threats like immediate injection assaults!
- Solution to go Dean Leitersdorf and staff Decart on popping out of stealth with a $21M seed spherical for a brand new inference mannequin that permits corporations to dramatically scale back the price of generative AI – wow ?
- Kudos Eran Barak and staff MIND on popping out of stealth with an $11M seed spherical to place information loss prevention (DLP) and insider threat administration (IRM) applications on autopilot!
- Properly completed Avner Geva and staff Vensica Medical on elevating an $11M funding spherical on your ultrasound drug supply know-how!
- Kol hakavod Benjamin Segal and staff Matia for popping out of stealth with a $10.5M seed spherical to construct a unified dataOps platform!
- Congratulations Ron Nachum and staff Sapien in your $8.7M seed spherical to construct autonomous monetary analysts for enterprise finance groups!
- Massive thumbs up Raz Rafaeli and staff Secret Double Octopus on securing an undisclosed strategic sequence C on your workforce passwordless authentication platform!
- Mazel tov Isaac B. and staff MOTORMIA on securing an $8M seed spherical for its AI powered modding buddy for automotive fanatics!
- Superior information Leonid Feinberg and staff Verax AI in your $7.6M seed spherical to ship visibility and management over LLMs!
- Great things Moshe Vaknin and staff LiZo.ai on securing an undisclosed pre-seed spherical to revolutionise actual property investing!
- Good going Lee Sharir-Dolev and staff Relyon.ai on securing an undisclosed pre-seed spherical to reinforce emergency name dealing with with AI, offering real-time insights!
EXITS
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
Israel:
- A 12 months on, battle has not undone Israeli VC—however leaves indelible mark – by Leah Hodgson on PitchBook
- Q3 2024 Israeli tech report by Startup Nation Central (ICYMI, the IVC Information and Insights Q3 2024 is right here).
- The highest 60 cybersecurity corporations (that includes a formidable variety of Israeli startups) – by Fortune and the very best innovations of 2024 (that includes a lot of Israeli startups) by TIME
International/ tech and enterprise:
- From the weblog: Non-Consensus Investing: Unlocking Enterprise Capital’s Hidden Gems (by me)
- The state of AI in Q3 2024 – a report by CB Insights
- Rising Up: Navigating Generative AI’s Early Years – AI Adoption Report by The Wharton Faculty
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
Snapshot of the Israeli tech ecosystem in Q3 2024 (supply in hyperlinks part above)
Whereas the median quantities dropped in all deal sorts throughout 2022–2024, the seed median climbed. In keeping with the report, the restoration is obvious not solely in early rounds. The capital raised in Q3/2024 reached $2.4 billion, 40% greater than the $1.74b raised in Q3/2023. (supply in hyperlinks part)
Israel ranks amongst the highest markets primarily based on inventory choice coverage in response to Index Ventures. Discover the detailed rating and the drivers behind it right here
What’s generative AI at the moment getting used for within the enterprise? a brand new survey by Wharton reveals that weekly Generative AI utilization for choice makers practically doubled in a single 12 months: from 37% in 2023 to 72% in 2024. (supply in hyperlinks part)
Phyton is the highest programming language in 2024, in response to GitHub report
AI is coming for the multi trillion companies business (supply)
In enterprise capital, the most important gems are within the non-consensus investments. Right here’s the quadrant on how one can assess threat in VC choice making (supply)
The unstructured information panorama by Felicis (supply)
That’s all for this week. Thanks for all the sort birthday needs. I simply hope that our hostages are again quickly and that we might stay in peace.
There’s quite a bit to have fun 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 assist of Room to Learn. Since inception in 2012 we have constructed 11 colleges and 50 libraries within the growing world.
