The original version of this newsletter was published on LinkedIn. Click here to sign up.
The word “Firgun” (Hebrew: ??????/ pronounced ‘feer-goon’) is an informal modern Hebrew term and concept in Israeli culture (originally Yiddish), which describes genuine, unselfish delight or pride in the accomplishment of the other person. It’s the opposite of “schadenfreude”. Firgun is all about genuinely feeling and expressing happiness, pride, or admiration for someone else’s accomplishments, good fortune, or well-being. More about Firgun and why it matters on VC Cafe: https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p
It’s been over 300 days since Oct 7 and the end is not yet in sight. Two arch te****ists were sent to “rest in pieces” and the subsequent imminent threats of retaliation. But there are also still 115 Israelis held in G**a and their time is running out. Israel must #BRINGTHEMHOME.
Several Israeli athletes won medals in the olympics this week amid death threats and intimidation campaigns. They all dedicated their wins to the hostages and the families who lost loved ones in this conflict, including the Israeli medalist and judo team coach Oren Smadga, who lost his son Omer in G**a a month ago. This interview didn’t leave a dry eye. A strong reminder that sport can give hope and unify people.
In July 2024, Israeli startups raised $703 million in 28 deals, more than double the amount raised in July 2023 (before the war). It’s a testament to the fact that Israeli tech delivers #NOMATTERWHAT. Proud to support the ecosystem with Remagine Ventures as we are in the process of closing 4 deals right now.
In the wider tech world, Generative AI startups raised $14.4B in Q2 2024 alone, which is 16.5% of global venture capital volume. There’s been huge progress in AI in the past two weeks including new models from Meta, Google DeepMind, OpenAI searchGPT and voice models, Hugging Face SlolLM. In addition, Intel Corporation is about to conduct mass layoffs of 15,000 people, Meta removed their celebrity AI chatbots, Stability AI announced Stable Fast3D for 3D asset creation, Suno admitted to training model with copyright music, Perplexity signs first publisher deals as it gets scrutinised for unlawfully scraping content and a new AI wearable device by Avi Schiffmann is aiming to alleviate loneliness as a necklace. Finally, OpenAI may be on track to lose $5 billion this year and may need additional funding within 12 months.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Hard days are the best because that’s when champions are made.” – Gabby Douglas, American gymnast
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congratulations Elad Schaffer and team Faye on securing a $31M series B to revolutionise travel insurance and financial services via mobile!
- Well done Ilan Peleg and team Lightrun on securing $18M to scale your Runtime Autonomous AI Debugger!
- Nice job Shmuel Bachinsky and team Quantum Transistors on securing $17.5M in grant funding from the EU to make quantum computing accessible to everyone!
- Kudos Eran Shust and team Holisto (formerly Splitty) on your $10M series B for your price aggregation technology!
- Good stuff Maya Cohen and team Monto for coming out of stealth with a $9M seed round for your e-invoicing platform to bring order to B2B payments!
- Way to go Ofir Har-Chen and team Clutch Security on raising an $8.5M seed round for securing and managing non-human identities such as APIs, bots, and service accounts!
- Mazal tov Sharon Yavo Ayalon and team UrbanMix for your undisclosed seed round to visualise real estate properties in 3D!
EXITS
- Congratulations Lior Pozin and team AutoDS – Automatic Dropshipping Tools on the acquisition by Fiverr for an undisclosed sum!
- Kudos Ortal Tevel and team Colu on the acquisition of your colored coins blockchain solution by QRyde for an undisclosed sum!
APPOINTMENTS
- Congrats Sarai Bronfeld on your promotion to partner at NFX!
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
Israel:
- Israeli tech review H1 2024 – by IVC Data and Insights
- Israel’s $155M fund to support 18 institutions in VC investments
- Seed valuations on the rise in Israel
Global:
- IDF on high alert as Iran threatens revenge
- The fastest growing startups in central europe
- 9 out of 10 of the fastest growing US cities are in Texas
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
Israeli tech defies the odds in H1 2024 despite war
AI funding jumped 59% QoQ to the highest quarterly level on record in Q2’24.
The new Unicorns of 2024, proud to see Israeli startup (and our Remagine Ventures portco) Minute Media on the list
The AI data infra landscape (source)
Who did it best? open vs closed source models
Hyperscalers will invest $1 trillion in coming years to scale AI…
Peter Paltchik won the first Israeli medal in Paris 2024 Olympics – watch his reaction
Finally, the real life avengers
That’s all for this week, thank you for reading and hoping for a peaceful weekend.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
- The potential of Mini Apps to disrupt App Distribution as we know it - December 21, 2024
- Weekly #FIRGUN Newsletter – Dec 20 2024 - December 20, 2024
- 2025 In Media and Entertainment Tech - December 19, 2024
