The original version of this newsletter was published on Linkedin.
It’s #Firgun time.
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
First and foremost, I’d like to wish readers of #Firgun a Shana Tova u metukah. The Jewish new year celebrations are dimmed by the war, and the incredible loss we experienced over the past year. As we approach the first anniversary of Oct 7, it’s also a reminder that we’re still here, we have a lot to be grateful for and we all have a role to play in the rebuilding effort that will follow. No holiday table feels complete this year, as we should not forget that there are still 101 Israeli hostages held in G**a. We must #BRINGTHEMHOME.
The preliminary figures for Israeli startups for Q3 2024 have been released by IVC Data and Insights and LeumiTech . Despite the war, Israeli startups raised $2.43 billion in Q3 2024, bringing the total amount of funding in the first 9 months of 2024 to $7.22 billion, a 32% increase compared to the equivalent period last year (pre-war). Exits since October 2023 (i.e. during the war) exceeded $12.2 billion so far. More in the links for your browser section below.
In the wider tech world, OpenAI completed its $6.6 billion raise (at $157 billion valuation), despite the senior departures of co-founder Mira Murati and the former head of research. OpenAI also launched Canvas, a new way to write code with ChatGPT and its realtime API. As OpenAI ironically becomes ‘closed’ (and for profit) NVIDIA announced an open-source GPT-4 rival,Microsoft unveiled co-pilot vision and a number of other AI additions to Windows. Google continues to advance its multi modal search, enabling Lens to search via video or voice. Google is also reportedly working on Reasoning AI, chasing OpenAI’s efforts with GPT-4o.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.” – James Branch Cabell
NEW VENTURE ROUNDS
- Congratulations Or Peles and team Nym on your $47M series B for your autonomous medical coding platform!
- Well done Itamar Friedman and team Qodo (formerly CodiumAI) on your impressive $40M series A to advance your AI-powered code integrity solutions!
- Great news Ron G. and team xtype.io on your $21M series A for your for multi-instance management soulution on the ServiceNow platform!
- Kudos Jenny Cohen Derfler and team Air Doctor on securing a $20M series B to connect travellers abroad to a global network of over 20,000 doctors and specialists
- Way to go Rom Carmel ? and team Apono on your $15.5M series A for cloud access management!
- Mazel tov Ohad Elhelo and team AUI™ (Augmented Intelligence) on your $10M series A (at a reported $350M valuation) for your AI agent solutions for customer interactions!
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
Israel:
- Israeli startups rebound in Q3 2024 (report link on VC Cafe )
- How Israeli spies penetrated Hizbollah by the Financial Times
- Social media’s double-edged sword: Israel’s war through the lens of Telegram and TikTok
Global:
- Q3 2024 global venture funding report (AI attracts $, everything else less so) – by Crunchbase
- Overview of AI voice agents by Andreessen Horowitz
- The Cloud 100 list by Bessemer (includes over 10 Israeli SaaS companies)
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
The full list of Israeli hostages in G**a. Keep them in your prayers.
What it felt for Israelis in the preparations for Rosh Hashannah (the whole country was sent to seek immediate shelter amidst 181 Iranian ballistic missile attack)
Israeli Q3 2024 preliminary numbers show that funding remained strong (despite the war) and cyber, which was very dominant, only represented 14% of total funding in the past quarter (source)
Venture funding in Q3 reached $66.5 billion, down 16% quarter over quarter and 15% year over year. That’s despite big deals in the AI sector, which accounted for 28% of all venture investment last quarter.
It’s a new world for enterprise automation source Lightspeed – (ICMY, I wrote about AI Agents and automation on VC Cafe last week)
Voice AI market map (source)
Finally, watch Iron Dome intercepting a rocket attack
Shana tova u metuka for those celebrating ? ?
There’s a lot to celebrate in our “small” community. Keep on creating!
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.
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