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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 satisfaction within the accomplishment of the opposite particular person. It’s the other 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
Trump was sworn in because the forty seventh US president. He selected to incorporate the households of the hos***es as the primary matter within the ceremony they usually stood proper behind Trump in his essential speech. It was laborious to not get emotional watching Emily, Romi and Doron re-unite with their households final Sunday ?? (see video). Extremely courageous girls. We expect 4 extra girls to return this Sunday as half of the present ceasefire deal. We should carry all of them dwelling so the therapeutic can start. #BRINGTHEMHOME ??
Slowly the normalcy appears to be returning to the Israeli startup ecosystem. Extra airways have resumed common flights to Tel Aviv. There are optimistic indicators that hostilities are winding down and Israel’s geopolitical actuality is brighter than it’s been, with potential to broaden the Abraham accords to different nations within the area. Right here’s to hoping.
The largest information in tech this week was the announcement of Stargate Venture – a $500B AI infrastructure funding plan for the US. OpenAI is standing to be the primary beneficiary, and it already stirred controversy with Elon Musk’s feedback. The corporate additionally introduced its first AI Agent, referred to as Operator, out there to PRO customers just for now. Perplexity launched AI-powered assistant to assist with each day duties. Chinese language AI heating up competitors: DeepSeek AI rocked the AI world this week with its R1 Mannequin exhibiting comparable outcomes to OpenAI’s o1 mannequin, simply open supply and at 5% or 10% of the price of OpenAI’s API. ByteDance additionally unveiled upgraded AI mannequin Doubao-1.5, which surpasses OpenAI’s o1 on AIME, a benchmark evaluating AI efficiency on advanced duties. Talking of, TikTok‘s US ban lasted 1 day, as President Trump granted the corporate a 75 day extension. The corporate is hoping it gained’t should promote. Google is investing one other $1 billion in Anthropic. The search big additionally rolled out a brand new Gemini 2.0 Flash Considering Mannequin with superior reasoning. Google additionally launched Titans, a analysis paper detailing a novel strategy that would exchange the transformer mannequin utilized by LLMs immediately. Are we about to see layoffs in banking? Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon says that AI can draft 95% of an S1 IPO prospectus “in minutes” (vs. a crew of 6 and weeks of labor earlier than). French Open Supply LLM Mistral AI is trying to IPO, Spline launched Spell, a mannequin to generate 3D worlds. And at last, Trump signed an govt order to advertise crypto, doubtlessly develop nationwide digital asset stockpile, led by David O. Sacks.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The golden age of America begins proper now. From this present day ahead, our nation will flourish and be revered once more all around the world.” –
President Donald Trump, 2025 Inauguration Speech.
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congratulations Alon Joffe and crew Eleos Well being on securing a $60M sequence C to to energy proprietary behavioural well being AI expertise with information from actual classes.
- Mazel tov Roy Tuvey and crew Vertice in your $50M sequence C to proceed scaling your SaaS spend optimisation platform!
- Nicely completed Tal Mozes and crew Mitiga in your $30M sequence B to guard enterprises from cybersecurity threats of their cloud environments.
- Kudos Ziv Fass and crew PACKAGE.AI in your $14M sequence A to streamline final mile deliveries and logistics with AI!
- Method to go Matan Cohen and crew Doti AI in your $7M seed spherical to assist enterprises securely entry and make the most of inside information!
EXITS
- Not all exits are completely satisfied however nonetheless an consequence. Congratulations Avi Golan and crew Oosto (previously Anyvision) on the acquisition of your facial recognition expertise by Metropolis Applied sciences for $125M.
NEW APPOINTMENTS
- Huge congrats Mor Chen in your new function as Associate at Greylock specializing in early stage Israeli startups! Hope we are able to do a deal collectively quickly!
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
ISRAEL
- Why I’m bullish in regards to the Israeli tech sector – by Noam Bardin, former CEO of Waze (Acquired by Google for $1.4 billion)
- For now, Israeli officers count on the settlement to carry – by Jerusalem Publish
- State of the cyber nation 2024 report – by YL Ventures and associated:
GLOBAL
- M&A involving VC backed startups picked up in 2024 – by Crunchbase
- Tech leaders pledge $500 billion to spend money on AI – by The Wall Road Journal
- World Cybersecurity Outlook 2025 – by World Financial Discussion board
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
The 2025 Israeli retail-tech startup map by Coresight Analysis and the Retail Innovation Membership was added to my new 2025 panorama assortment on VC Cafe .
The resignation that wasn’t. Calcalist, a number one Israeli publication, revealed that Michael Eisenberg is leaving the VC agency he helped create, Aleph, however didn’t look forward to affirmation. The article was deleted after he denied it on X and an apology was issued. Globes has extra.
The proactive safety startup panorama by MMC Ventures (supply)
The quickest rising markets in 2025 revolve round AI.
That being mentioned, solely 32% of the technique leaders we surveyed have lively genAI deployments at their organisations. (supply)
The highest 3 ache factors technique groups cite as obstacles to genAI adoption are:
- Safety & privateness dangers (46%)
- Competing inside priorities (42%)
- Authorized & regulatory concerns (40%)
Dwell lengthy and prosper (possibly with a bit of assist from AI?). The brand new longevity startup panorama revealed by CB Insights
DeepSeek R1 rivals OpenAI’s o1 in Synthetic Evaluation High quality Index at decrease price
Gaming is big, however do you know that Roblox is the dimensions of Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation COMBINED? It reaches 50% of US households.
The agent economic system. Panorama by Felicis (supply)
Europe’s VC shakeup. The European VC panorama is experiencing a big contraction, with a 30% drop in lively funds and a considerable lower in fundraising, suggesting a shift in direction of established gamers and specialised smaller companies. (supply: Sifted)
And at last, a healthful second of aid and emotion for Emily, Romi and Doron. Could all of the households ready for his or her family members get to expertise this.
We have now rather a lot to rejoice in our “small” neighborhood. 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 colleges and 50 libraries within the growing world.
