Weekly #FIRGUN Newsletter

As every Friday, it's my pleasure to share a weekly summary of the movers and shakers in Israeli tech and venture. If you're not yet subscribed, click the button get the next edition straight into your inbox.

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

Naturally, I had to ask ChatGPT to help me with the definition of "Firgun" and how it's used in practice. Here's the answer:

"Firgun" is a Hebrew term that is often translated as "altruistic pleasure" or "kindness" or "generosity." It refers to the act of feeling happy or satisfied when others succeed or are fortunate, and is often used to describe a person who takes pleasure in the success or happiness of others. In practice, Firgun can be expressed in many ways, such as by offering congratulations, expressing appreciation, or by taking actions that help others achieve their goals. It is an important value in many cultures, and is particularly prevalent in Israeli culture.

Greetings from Vancouver where I'm currently attending TED. A good reminder that despite all the shit we hear in the news there's a lot of good happening in the world, in science, technology, education, climate, social justice, etc.

My quote of the week is:

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Stephen Hawking

NEW INVESTMENT ROUNDS

- Congratulations? Guy Moskowitz ?and team? Coro ?on your $75M new funding round for a cyber security platform that serves the mid market!

- Kudos? Raanan Raz ?and team Avalor Security, a Zscaler Company ?on your $25M series A (and previous $5M seed) for a cybersecurity data lake unifying platform!

- Well done? Amir Faintuch ?and team? Volumez ?on your $20M series A to scale your controller orchestration software!

- Big thumbs up Sivan Iram ?and team? Flow ?on your $15.6M Series A to connect insurance brokers and carriers using AI-based risk appetite!

- Way to go Isaac Litman ?and team? Neteera ?on your $13M Series B funding for your FDA-approved remote, contactless continuous patient monitoring device!

- Mabruk? Oded Melamed ?and team? Quantum Source ?on your $12M seed extension, taking your total seed round to $27M, to build in photonic quantum computing solutions!

- Good stuff Izhak Paz and team? SafeGuard Applied Innovation LTD ?on your $8M series A to automate safety decision-making in construction sites!

- Mazal tov Noam Bernstein and team? Floodlight ?on your $6.4M seed round funding to help SME e-commerce customers manage their finances on one platform!

- Congrats Arik Shetrit and team? Viridix ?on your $4.1M funding round to help farmers increase crop yields with soil sensors!

EXITS

- Congratulations Giora Engel and team neosec.com on your exit to Akamai Technologies for an undisclosed sum estimated at tens of millions!

APPOINTMENTS

- Congratulations? Adi Dangot Zukovsky on being appointed as partner at 10D !

LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER:

1)?I wrote a blog post on the GPU shortage and cloud costs of generative AI startups, read it on VC Cafe

2) We ( Remagine Ventures ) published our latest Israeli Generative AI startup landscape at CTech by Calcalist

3)?Generative AI continued to advance this week. A few interesting nuggets

• Alphabet Inc. is merging its AI units Google DeepMind and Google Brain under the brilliant Demis Hassabis
• Meta released DinoV2, a new method for training high-performance computer vision models.
• Stability AI launched its own open-source LLM (to offer an alternative to OpenAI 's GPT)
• 英伟达 launched a High-Resolution Video Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models
• Human or bot? A social Turing game?
• AI Music: Drake and the Weekend in AI generated song that went viral
• Synthesis AI debuts high-resolution text-to-3D capabilities with synthesis labs

HOUSEKEEPING

?? For those of you who are interested in generative AI, I created?a new Whatsapp Community?for more frequent updates

?? Please subscribe to my new?Youtube Channel?and?TikTok channel?- I post videos daily on Generative AI, startups and venture capital

CHART(s) OF THE WEEK

We published the new Israeli generative AI startup landscape on Calcalist ??????? this week - it was added to the Israeli startup landscape collection

A table of European media ownership. Streaming, games, music

Bessemer Venture Partners new state of the cloud report showcases Israel. The Israeli cloud market is distinct in its scale for such a small country, representing just .12% of the world’s population.

Last year, almost 2% of all VC dollars were deployed in Israel, nearly as many VC dollars as all of Latin America, including Mexico.

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The YC pocket guide advice for startup founders

The Economist reports using Omdia and Newzoo data that Games will become the single largest entertainment vertical surpassing Pay TV by 2026.

The impact of generative AI on the labor market and in earning calls

That's all for this week. Keep on creating! There's so much to celebrate in our "small" community!

Eze Vidra

#tech #startups #vc #venturecapital #innovaton #generativeAI #AI