Weekly #FIRGUN Newsletter

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

I was in Israel this week and I'm happy to share this edition of #Firgun somewhere between Tel Aviv and London. My stomach turned this week watching that video . 3 more bodies of hostages were recovered today, after 230 days. We must #BRINGTHEMHOME NOW???

This week in tech was marked by mega rounds in AI (what bubble?): xAI is rumoured to have raised $6 billion, $1B for Scale AI , H Company raised $220M (largest Seed round in AI) and AI music generator Suno raised $125M. 微软 announced the first ever AI PC (and It's 58% faster than the latest Macbook Air M3, but its AI Recall feature takes constant screenshots of everything you do), OpenAI got in trouble this week: it disbanded its safety team, got sued by Scarlet Johanson for cloning her voice for GPT-4o without permission and was criticised for its aggressive non-disparaging employment clause that threatens to take away employee equity. 英伟达 profits are 628% up compared to last year.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

It used to be the case that you could be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic. My friend Christopher Hitchens certainly was that. And I was sort of that, at one point. But I’m not sure it’s a position one can truly occupy now. October 7th changed my thinking on this. I remain uncomfortable with the concept of any sort of religious ethno-state. But given the murderous antisemitism of so much of the world, given that almost every country that has had a population of Jews has at some point actively persecuted them and driven them out—literally, almost any country you can name in Europe or North Africa or the Middle East had done this at some point. Given the tolerance of this reality by billions of onlookers—well, then the Jews clearly need their own state, and it should defend itself without apology. - Sam Harris

Listen to the podcast or read the transcript .

NEW FUNDING ROUNDS

• Congratulations Roi Ravhon and team Finout on your $26M series B to optimise cloud expenditure and cost allocation across all cloud services!
• Way to go Yarden Gross and team Orca AI on your $23M round for AI automated navigation support for ships!
• Congrats Noory Bechor and team Superlegal on your $5M seed round for AI contract review!
• Kudos Dr. Adi Hod and team Velotix on your undisclosed strategic round for your cutting-edge data security solution powered by AI!
• Well done Guy Gadnir and team Journeyz on your undisclosed pre-seed round to help B2B saas clients reduce churn!

EXITS

• Congratulations Yaron Morgenstern and team Glassbox on the $150M acquisition by Alicorn Venture Partners
• Good stuff Kfir Benjamin and team Get SAT on the undisclosed acquisition by 泰雷兹
• Mabruk Adam Geller and team Exabeam on the merger with LogRhythm SIEM

APPOINTMENTS

• Congrats Alon Huri on joining Team8 as its new Managing Partner!

LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER

Israel:

1. Report - Israel's AI landscape by RISE Israel (formerly SNPI)
2. Juan Delgado-Moreira , Co-CEO of Hamilton Lane "We have a clear commitment to continue and increase our investments in Israel. This is the time to increase positions in Israel, and to continue to be a world leader in this matter. This is how we will be considered a real investor - not just when the sun is shining.""We have a clear commitment to continue and increase our investments in Israel. This is the time to increase positions in Israel, and to continue to be a world leader in this matter. This is how we will be considered a real investor - not just when the sun is shining." (link )
3. Scott Galloway on the double standard Israel is held up against and the state of US college campuses

Global/tech:

1. When it comes to generative AI, the long term value is in the apps, not the pipes, by my Remagine Ventures partner Kevin Baxpehler
2. The future of search and the AI powered web - interview with Sundar Pichai
3. The Flybridge AI Index - tracks the performance of AI-focused companies

MEDIA OF THE WEEK

When it comes to positive attitude towards AI, Israel is #1

Anthropic has just revealed some exciting news about Claude Sonnet. They've successfully identified how millions of concepts are represented inside this massive model (source: https://www.anthropic.com/research/mapping-mind-language-model )

Screenshots of 谷歌 's AI overview feature giving bizarre suggestions are going viral (source )

It's crazy how many successful pivots are not just changes of strategy but complete switch to another product category. (by @lenny ra

How much are enterprises spending on AI

Product market fit framework by Sequoia's Arc

That's all for this week. There's a lot to be proud of in our "small" community! Keep on creating!

Eze Vidra

#tech #israel #innovation #startups #venturecapital #startupnation