In memoriam – this week’s edition is dedicated to Zvi Halfin (z”l), my stepfather and close member of our family who passed away last week. May his memory forever be a blessing.
The original version of this newsletter was published on Linkedin.
If you’re new here, 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” (which stands for being happy for someone else’s misfortune). Firgun is all about genuinely feeling and expressing happiness, pride, or admiration for members of our community’s accomplishments, good fortune and wins. More about Firgun and why it matters on VC Cafe: https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p
Israeli startups raised $2.1 billion in Q1 2025 in 96 disclosed rounds, with $1 billion raised in March alone. Israeli cybersecurity companies accounted for $996M, approximately 50% of all investments. There are still 59 Israeli hostages held in G**a. We must #BRINGTHEMHOME
In the wider tech world, Trump’s global tariff’s erased $2.2 trillion from the market this week amid uncertainty. US stocks suffer worst quarter since 2022. OpenAI raised $40 billion (led by SoftBank) at a record $300 billion valuation. Interesting facts: ChatGPT has hit 20 million paid subscribers. It gains 1M users in one hour and GPT 4.5 has passed the Turing Test. Amazon launched Nova Act browser agent. Wikimedia Foundation shared that bandwidth up 50% from AI crawlers. Runway released Gen-4 AI models and announced a $308M round. Anthropic launched Claude for Education. Google DeepMind outlined its approach to AGI safety in four key areas of risk: misuse, misalignment, mistakes, and structural risks. NVIDIA faces dilemma as Chinese firms place $16B in AI chip orders. Meta announced MoCha, a new model that turns text or voice into super realistic talking characters.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Legacy is not leaving something for people. It’s leaving something in people.”
— Peter Strople
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congratulations Dr. Aharon El-Bahar and team Retym, Inc on securing a $75M series D for your AI datacenter chip!
- Well done Shay Levi and team Unframe AI on coming out of stealth with $50M in funding ($30M series A and previously undisclosed $20M seed round) to replace legacy software with rapid, tailored solutions!
- Kudos Roy Baharav and team Hi Auto on raising $15M series A to automate drive-thru orders with AI!
- Way to go Yuval Tal and team Linguana on securing $8.5M in seed funding for AI dubbing!
- Good stuff Matan Goldner and team Conntour (YC W25) on securing $7M in seed funding to leverage AI for security camera monitoring!
- Great news Arik Faingold and team Autonomy AI on coming out of stealth with $4M in seed funding to integrate autonomous AI agents into development teams
EXITS
No exits reported this week.
APPOINTMENTS
- Congratulations Yoni Osherov on joining Entrée Capital as general partner!
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
- A report on the Tel Aviv startup ecosystem – by Dealroom.co and Tel Aviv Global
- Deepmind says that AGI may outhink humans by 2030
- Everything you learn in YC in 10 minutes – on VC Cafe
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
Israeli startups raised $2.1M in Q1 2025 across 96 rounds
Over 180 multinationals have R&D centers in Israel, tapping into local talent (view report)
Roughly $1.7 trillion was erased from the S&P 500 at the start of US trading on Thursday amid worries that President Donald Trump’s sweeping new round of tariffs could plunge the economy into a recession. The damage was heaviest in companies whose supply chains are most dependent on overseas manufacturing.
The memes kept coming
U.S. 10-year treasury yields slumped to the lowest in more than 5 months
OpenAI revenue forecast ? (as per Bloomberg story)
If OpenAI was a public company…
The CFO tech stack by Norwest (source)
AI is transforming the commercial and financial potential for vertical software, lowering build costs and multiplying monetisation opportunities. by Dawn Capital (source)
A reason to be optimistic. Thoma Bravo expects the tech market to continue to grow. AI will benefit enterprise software customers in at least two key ways:
1) Democratize access so that more users can make use of deep business insights built from massive data sets; and
2) Enable customers to make real-time operating decisions at scale, with greater speed, precision and less labor input.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for tuning in.
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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