The original version of this newsletter was published on Linkedin.
This week’s edition is dedicated to Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas z”l. We are all heartbroken. May their memories forever be a blessing.
The word “Firgun” (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
I was in Tel Aviv this week and felt the impact of October 7 in every turn. I met a founder who’s sister was kidnapped (and later released). Every train station has been plastered with stickers, commemorating the many victims, the majority of them young. There are still 73 Israelis held in G**a. We already know what they are going through. We must #BRINGTHEMHOME now.
In the wider tech world, Microsoft announced a breakthrough in Quantum computing with their new “Microsoft’s Majorana 1 chip” which leverages the world’s superconductor (a new state of matter) following 17 years of research. Relatedly, Microsoft has introduced Muse as its AI model to generate gameplays. Google announced Gemini 2.0-powered AI Co-Scientist multi-agent system to aid researchers. Arc Institute and NVIDIA unveiled Evo-2, the largest AI model for genome writing. Elon Musk released the Grok 3 family of reasoning models, which temporarily took the top spot, topping OpenAI’s o3. xAI has also launched DeepSearch, an AI agent for web-based research, brainstorming, and data analysis. Perplexity‘s launched a free ‘Deep Research’ version to compete with OpenAI’s product available for Pro users (for $200 a month). Perplexity also open sourced DeepSeek R1 version without Chinese censorship. The valuation of Safe Superintelligence Inc. founded by Ilya Sutskever (with offices in CA and Tel Aviv) jumped to $30 billion in just 6 months. OpenAI ChatGPT now has 400 million monthly active users. ElevenLabs partnered with Spotify to launch AI voice audiobooks, competing with Audible. Meta announced it will be entering the Humanoid robots space.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Well done Shalev Hulio and team Dream on raising a $100M series B (at a $1.1 billion valuation) to provide comprehensive cybersecurity protection for governments and national organisations! ?
- Big congrats Saar Yoskovitz and team Augury on your $75M series F (and new unicorn status) to enhance your its AI-driven solutions for machine health! ?
- Kudos Ido Ben-Natan and team Blockaid on your $50M series B to combat rising blockchain threats!
- Great news Yoav Einav and team Guidde on your $15M series A to scale your AI powered instructional videos!
- Way to go Ronit Belson and team Sawmills on coming out of stealth with a $10M seed round to transform telemetry data management with AI!
- Kol hakavod Arnon Heyman and IBI-Ag on securing a $6.1M seed round to bring pharma-inspired crop protection to farms!
EXITS
There were no Israeli exits recorded this week
NEW FUNDS
- Congratulations Shay Grinfeld and team Greenfield Partners on securing a new $400M fund 3 to invest in Israeli B and C rounds
- Kudos Itamar Novick on launching a new $30M solo GP fund for Recursive Ventures
LI NKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
GLOBAL
- The AI jobs report: what jobs are at risk and where the opportunity lies – on VC Cafe
- The State of Pre-seed in 2025 – report by Carta
- US market insights report Q1 2025 – by PitchBook
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
The returns of Lightspeed have been revealed (source)
In the rapid pace of AI advancements, performance gaps are closing fast by CB Insights
Grok 3 has emerged as the leading non-reasoning model on Artificial Analysis’s benchmark
The AI Agents landsscape by Insight Partners
As competition intensifies between Perplexity, foundation model companies, and Google, Perplexity is betting on deepening prosumer habitual use in key verticals like finance and shopping to drive growth to a projected $127M in 2025 and $656M in 2026. Sacra estimates that Perplexity hit $63M in ARR at the end of 2024, up 800% from $7M in 2023.
Humanoid robots are coming… and not just from China.
Plane is taking off. That’s all for this week. We have 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.
- Weekly Firgun Newsletter – March 20 2025 - March 21, 2025
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- Weekly Firgun Newsletter – March 14 2025 - March 14, 2025
