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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
It’s been 405 days since October 7th 2023. The wounds still run deep, not just for Israelis but to Jews worldwide, as they see the alarming rise in Antisemitism. The pogrom we saw in Amsterdam, close to the 86 year anniversary of Kristallnacht, brought back painful memories of Jewish people under attack. There’s no one that feels this pain more than the hostages and their families. For healing to begin, we must #BRINGTHEMHOME
A friend, successful entrepreneur who took a company public, asked me for help on a presentation he was giving about the economic resilience of Israel. I pointed him to a couple of recent reports that showed that Israeli startups raised 35% more in the first nine months of 2024, than the equivalent period in 2023 (pre-war). Given the circumstances, it’s nothing short of incredible, I’d say.
In the wider tech world, there’s a lot going on. Let’s start with Saudi Arabia who is planning a massive $100 billion AI project and the EU slapping Meta an $840M over abusive practices in FB marketplace. All the AI giants are reportedly facing challenges in building more advanced AI. Bitcoin topped a record of all time at $87,000, Chinese gaming giant Tencent reported 47% surge in profits from gaming and AI, and Perplexity is nearing $500M funding round at $9 billion valuation as it started introducing ads. All of this AI usage is creating a power problem: nearly half of AI data centres may lack enough power by 2027, according a report by Gartner. I don’t mostly mention smaller rounds of US startups, but take a look at Odyssey which raised $18M series A this week. They are offering extremely realistic generative world-building models, trained on the real-world (captured with a futuristic looking camera).
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
It’s good to be a SEEKER, but sooner or later You have to be a FINDER. And then it is well to give what You have found, a gift into the world for whoever will accept it.”
?Richard D. Bach (1970) from JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL
NEW VENTURE ROUNDS
- Congratulations Guy Podjarny and team Tessl on your impressive $125M in funding unveiled ($25M seed and $100M series A) for your AI coding platform!
- Awesome milestone Amiram Shachar and team Upwind Security on securing (no pun intended) a $100M to protect cloud infrastructure in real time!
- Well done Yodar Shafrir and team ScaleOps – Cloud-Native Optimization on securing a $58M series B to scale your hands-off approach to cloud optimisation!
- Kudos Alon Arvatz and team PointFive on your $20M series A to track cloud usage across multiple clouds to optimise costs!
- Way to go ?Asaf Yanai and team Alison.ai on securing a $13.3M seed round (an $8.2 seed extension) to scale your AI-based video ad optimisation!
- Great stuff Guy Piekarz and team Panjaya.ai on coming out of stealth with $9.5M in seed funding to launch your AI-based dubbing platform!
- Mazal tov David Talinovsky and team Bluespine on coming out of stealth with a $7.2M seed round to help self-insured employers manage medical overbilling!
EXITS
- Well done Schraga Mor and team Plarium on your $620M-$820M acquisition of by Modern Times Group MTG AB! Israeli gaming talent FTW!
- Congrats Sharon Wagner and team Cybersixgill on your acquisition by Bitsight for a reported $115M to strengthen cyber risk management!
- Mabruk Roy Akerman and team Rezonate on the $30M exit to Silverfort!
- One door closes and another one opens, Iddo Gino and team Rapid API. Congrats on the sale to Nokia for an undisclosed sum to boost API-driven 5G monetization!
APPOINTMENTS
- Congratulations Eran Westman on your appointment as Managing Partner at Planven to lead growth investments in Israel! Would love to find a deal together with Remagine Ventures
NEW FUNDS
- Well done Dror Glass and team ISF Israel Secondary Fund on closing your third fund at $350 million ($100 million above the initial target)!
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
ISRAEL
- Israel’s AI startups dominate tech investment landscape. AI companies secured nearly half of the total tech funding in Israel, a striking figure given that AI startups comprise just 30% of the broader tech ecosystem.
- Startups choose to stay in stealth, more than ever before by Sophie Shulman for Calcalist ??????? (I agree with this and 5 of the investments we made over the summer chose to stay in stealth mode for now)
- Google, Amazon set to compete in tender for Israel’s AI supercomputing platform:
GLOBAL
- OpenAI and others seek new path to smarter AI as current methods hit limitations
- State of private markets Q3 2024 by Carta
- “I think 2025 is going to be the year that agentic systems finally hit the mainstream.”
NEW on VC CAFE
- The AI Services revolution: Why VCs are betting big on Agentic AI
- Kindling Early B2C Growth: Getting to 1,000 Users
- ICMYI: My 2024 Israeli startup Landscape Collection
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
Another sad milestone reached. #BRINTHEMHOME NOW!
Shocking alert from the Israel Ministry of Diaspora Affairs identifies 3 European countries/regions in which Jews are at “very high risk” for physical violence (source)
The seed consumer VC market map by Headline – Remagine Ventures is sadly missing, but nevertheless worth a share! (source)
In case you were wondering who wrote the most patents on generative AI… take a look at the chart below (from a report by Wipro)
Y Combinator says we’re in the “Golden age of building” in their latest ‘request for startups’ post. Ben Lang did a great job summarising it in one sheet. (source)
Interesting market map of Gen AI use cases in education by Edtech Insiders (source)
RIP to RPA – how AI Agents are changing automation by Andreessen Horowitz (source)
The median time between primary rounds has lengthened considerably over the past 2 years. For a while the standard 18-24 months advice held pretty true (see the blue area in the below chart) but lately that’s out of date.
Interesting chat between Sam Altman and Gerry Tan on how to build the future and just how close we are to AGI…
Finally, I’ll be at Slush in Helsinki next week for the first time. I’m looking forward to meeting old friends and making new connections.
That’s all for this week. Thank you for reading. 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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