Weekly #FIRGUN Newsletter

It's?#Firgun?time!

As every Friday, it's my pleasure to share a weekly summary of the movers and shakers in Israeli tech and venture. Please note: this NEW Linkedin Firgun newsletter replaced my previous mailchimp/ social post. Hit "subscribe" to get it straight into your inbox next week!

"Firgun" (Hebrew: ??????) 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. More about Firgun and why it matters on?VC Cafe:?https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p

It's been a momentous week in tech with Elon Musk letting it 'sink in', Meta losing billions in value and layoffs intensifying in Israeli startups. Let's dive in.

NEW INVESTMENT ROUNDS

- Congratulations Nadav Shoval and team OpenWeb on your $170M series F at $1.5 billion valuation to combat toxicity in virtual spaces!

- Mabruk Michael Gabay and team Trigo on your $100M series C for frictionless retail checkout!

- Kudos Yaniv Bertele and team Vesttoo on your $80 million Series C and new Unicorn status for the world’s first marketplace for Life and P&C insurance-based risk transfer and investments!

- Big congrats Yoni Shohet and team Valence Security on your $25M series A for your SaaS security remediation platform!

- Big respect ? Ronen Lavi and team? Navina on your $22M series B for AI primary care!

- Great news Emil Alon and team Resonai on your $20M series A extension to refactor physical properties into new digital assets!

- Mazel tov Gilad Talmon and team YOOM (formerly Tetavi) on your $15M round for volumetric capture solutions to create immersive, photo realistic content!

- Well done Alon Talmor and team Ask-AI Galaxy on your $9M seed round to empower customer experience teams to query all internal data sources quickly!

- Good stuff Nir Valtman and team Arnica on your $7M seed round for supply chain cybersecurity!

- Mazel tov Roee Nir and team Forsea on your $5.2M seed round for cultivated eel meat to reduce the impact on marine life!

- Congrats Tom S. and team Hourly on your $5M series A extension to simplify and automate payroll of remote hourly employees!

- Kol hakavod Yishai Mishor and team Meat.The End Inc. on your $4M seed to transform the texture of alternative meat!

- Nice job David Pruwer and team OurRitual on your $2M seed round to power remote couple therapy!

- Way to go Yossi Appleboum and team Sepio on your undisclosed Series B for your zero trust hardware access solution!

EXITS

- Way to go Amnon Shashua and team Mobileye on Israel's largest IPO ever, and life saving computer vision technology for vehicles. The company IPO'd at $16 billion and was valued over $20 billion just hours after debut.

- Congratulations Rafael Museri and team Selina on your successful IPO this week, which saw shares jump 300% valuing the company at $4 billion!

NEW FUNDS

- Congratulations Dan Krasnostein , Roy Kimchi , Yonatan Sela and team Square Peg on the new $550M fifth fund, with about one third dedicated to Israeli startups! Look forward to our first deal together with Remagine Ventures !

- Mabruk Meirav Harnoy , Adoram Gaash and team Moneta VC on your first closing for fund IV targeting $120M for growth stage fintech and insurtech investments in Israel!

APPOINTMENTS

- Congratulations Sapir Harosh on being appointed as Partner at Third Point LLC to lead the firm's growth investments in Israel!

- Kudos Noam Maital on joining UpWest as EIR!

OTHER

- Respect Didi Gurfinkel and team Datarails for being selected as the most promising startup for 2022 by The Information !

THREE LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER

1. The Israeli startups pioneering the Generative AI space - I wrote this article for CTech by Calcalist
2. Creator Economy startups to watch according to VCs - I contributed to Sifted on this piece
3. New on VC Cafe :

• What's a better return: consumer or enterprise?
• Why revenue shouldn't be your north star metric ??
• Raising venture capital in a down market (surprise at the end)

PODCASTS OF THE WEEK

1. Consumer VC : I recorded this episode with Mike Gelb on Israeli consumer startups and opportunities in gaming and the metaverse
2. Founder Storiez: I recommend this wonderful 2 part conversation I had with Ephraim Yarmak on what drives me.

CHART OF THE WEEK

In Q1–Q3/2022, Israeli high-tech companies raised $12.3 billion in 538 deals. In Q3/2022, $2.6 billion were raised in 143 deals. The numbers for the first nine months of 2022 show the extent of the slowdown in almost all parts of the Israeli tech economy, except in early-stage companies.

New report by?IVC Data and Insights?and?Bank Leumi ??? ?????: https://lnkd.in/esPeajz2

There's so much to celebrate in our "small" community! Keep on creating!

Shabbat shalom

Eze Vidra

#tech #vc #israel #startups