The unique model of this text was printed on Linkedin.
The phrase “Firgun” (pronounced ‘feer-goon’) is an off-the-cuff trendy 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 alternative of “schadenfreude”. Firgun is all about genuinely feeling and expressing happiness, pleasure, or admiration for another person’s accomplishments, success, or well-being. Extra about Firgun and why it issues on VC Cafe: https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p
I’m sharing this version of #Firgun from a airplane. I used to be in Helsinki this week and met a large number of European and US VCs, LPs and founders. I’m undecided if it has to do with me, however refreshingly, Israel didn’t come up in any respect other than the occasional query of how’s my household. It’s a terrific reminder that to heal, and transfer ahead, we should undertake a ‘enterprise as ordinary’ method. Hold constructing, investing and planning for a greater future. It’s additionally a reminder that we’re all on this collectively. We’ve got to assist one another and don’t neglect that there’s folks that want our assist. We should #BRINGTHEMHOME
Within the wider tech world, Microsoft turned 50 this week, xAI raised one other $6 billion (at a $50 billion valuation) to compete with ChatGPT, Databricks is seeking to increase $8 billion to purchase worker inventory, Google will seemingly need to divest of Chrome following the DOJ resolution to curb monopoly, NVIDIA has doubled its income over the previous yr (however progress slowed), Apple is engaged on ‘Siri LLM’ to compete with ChatGPT, Bluesky Social, the Xitter competitor gained 1m customers final week and reached 20M customers. Chinese language LLMs are getting higher and Deepseek AI launched a brand new mannequin that may ‘motive’ which is on par with OpenAI o1-preview. @perple VC returns can solely go up (I hope) as 2023 VCs eturned the bottom stage of capital to their traders since 2011.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The affordable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in attempting to adapt the world to himself. Subsequently, all progress is determined by the unreasonable man”
George Bernard Shaw
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congratulations Yotam Segev and workforce Cyera in your spectacular $300M sequence D, doubling the corporate’s worth to $3 billion to be the Crowstrike of knowledge safety!
- Mazel tov Israel (Srulik) Dvorsky and workforce TailorMed on securing a $40M to attach sufferers with monetary assist options!
- Nicely accomplished Assaf Rappaport and workforce Wiz in your undisclosed spherical of funding to proceed the journey of because the quickest rising Israeli startup in historical past!
- Method to go Itamar Golan and workforce Immediate Safety in your $18M sequence A to assist corporations safe their generative AI instruments!
- Kudos Yehuda Niv and workforce Spines in your $16.5M sequence A to assist authors self-publish their books with the assistance of AI!
- Nice milestone Dvir Hoffman and workforce CommBox in your $15M sequence B to construct the way forward for buyer expertise powered by AI!
- Thumbs up Benny Porat and workforce Twine Safety on popping out of stealth with a $12M seed spherical to automate safety duties beginning with id administration!
- Kol hakavod Liav Georgy and workforce Oraqon on securing a $10M seed spherical for a really secret defence tech product associated to sensors (keep tuned for extra)
- Good news Dov Gertz and workforce Converge Bio in your $5.5M seed spherical to speed up drug discovery and improvement with AI!
- Good things Rohi Hourvitz and workforce FertilAI on securing a $4.5M seed spherical to scale your AI-powered scientific resolution assist instruments for fertility!
EXITS
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
ISRAEL
- Sequoia Capital accomplice Shaun Maguire on why the enterprise capital fund has resumed operations in Israel because the begin of the warfare, after closing its workplace right here in 2016.
- Oracle CEO Safra Catz: “Israel might be flooded with investments after the warfare“
- Podcast: Constructing Wiz, the quickest rising startup in historical past – by Lenny Rachitsky
- BONUS: Israel’s tech AI ecosystem report by Startup Nation Central
GLOBAL
- State of company enterprise capital report by SVB
- The state of Generative AI within the Enterprise by Menlo Ventures
- AI Eats the world presentation – by Benedict Evans
- BONUS: “Breaking the mildew: Sample Breakers e book overview” – by me on VC Cafe
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
AI startups demonstrated higher resilience in comparison with non-AI counterparts
The variety of energetic AI corporations noticed a outstanding improve of over 170%, rising from 783 corporations in 2014 to 2170 in 2023, whereas the variety of non-AI corporations grew by solely 12%. In 2018 the variety of energetic non-AI corporations reached its peak after which began to descend. On the similar time, energetic AI corporations continued to develop, reaching a peak in 2022.
SAFE is king. Practically 90% of Q3 2024 seed rounds had been accomplished utilizing SAFEs (supply Carta)
CVCs are obsessive about AI. Asia continues to be the biggest marketplace for CVC funding, accounting for 39% of all offers. by SVB
Fashionable AI stack – the rising constructing blocks for AI
Aerospace and defence market map (supply)
The brand new unicorns of 2024 thus far
My first Slush is a wrap. Small Israeli presence however massive US presence of LPs and GPs. Learn my takeaways.
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 normal 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 assist of Room to Learn. Since inception in 2012 we have constructed 11 colleges and 50 libraries within the creating world.
