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

It's hard to believe that it's been over 7 months since October 7th. This week I attended an event were I've heard testimonies from four Nova Festival survivors, and watched a short VR documentary filmed on the site. I've heard the horrific story of an Ethiopian-Israeli woman that had to play dead to survive after she's been hit in the face with a gun, her friends were killed. There are 133 Israelis still held hostage in Gaza. Many are feared dead. We must #BringthemHome NOW.

The Israeli tech ecosystem continued to show positive signs of recovery and resilience this week. Israeli startups raised a total of $1 billion in April alone, but May is looking even stronger with a $1 billion round of investment in cybersecurity startup Wiz , and another large acquisition of an Israeli startup, this time by Akamai Technologies . To encourage institutional investors to deploy more capital into tech, the Israel Innovation Authority launched Yozma 2.0, offering co-investment matching with capital gains protection.

More broadly in tech, 微软 is pursuing AI independence by training MAI-1, its own Large Language Model, Google DeepMind launched Alphafold 3, the newest version of the groundbreaking AI model that can predict the structure of proteins, DNA, and other molecules with extreme accuracy. OpenAI is rumoured to launch AI search to compete with 谷歌 (and Perplexity ) and has introduced Model Spec, a framework that outlines the company's approach to shaping the behavior of its AI models .

Let's dive in.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice."

– Bob Marley

NEW FUNDING ROUNDS

• Congratulations Assaf Rappaport and team Wiz on securing a $1 BILLION series E at $12 billion valuation, and becoming the fastest growing Israeli startup in history!
• Kudos Itai Ben-Zaken and team Honeycomb Insurance on raising $36M series B extension for your landlord insurance platform!
• Well done Mor Brokman and team Opmed.ai on your $15M series A to bring AI optimisation to healthcare operations!
• Mazel tov Noam Mills and team Panax on your $10M series A to help finance teams control cash flow and manage liquidity with confidence!
• Way to go Pini Tsukerman and team Nectin Therapeutics on the $10M series B for developing a collection of next-generation immunotherapy agents!
• Big thumbs up Samuel Cohen and team Fairgen on your $8M seed round for accurate AI-generated survey responses!
• Great news Itamar Apelblat and team Token Security on coming out of stealth with a $7M seed round to launch your machine-first identity security platform!
• Congrats Ari Brenner and team In-House Health on securing a $4M seed round to launch your AI nurse scheduling platform!
• Kol hakavod Michal Tamir and team Superfy on raising a $2.2M seed extension for your social network and Q&A platform aimed at Gen Z!
• Last but not least, well done Shay Hugi and team Liberty Pixel on raising $1m for your new online gaming studio!

EXITS

• Kudos Oz Golan and team Noname Security on the $450M acquisition by Akamai Technologies !
• Way to go Daria Lemann-Blumenthal and team BELKIN Vision on the $300M acquisition by Alcon !
• Not all exits are happy, but nevertheless, congrats Matteo de Renzi and team Gett on the $175M acquisition by Pango !
• Congrats Uri Steinfeld and team Immagnify (acquired by Warmly) on the acquisition by Warmly, for an undisclosed sum.

NEW FUNDS

• Big congrats Eyal Bino and team 97212 Ventures on the launch of your $20M early stage fund focused on Israeli startups - hope we get a chance to collaborate!

LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER

1. Remagine Ventures published the new Israeli Generative AI startup landscape in CTech by Calcalist - the number of GenAI companies nearly doubled since the previous version we shared in September 2023!
2. Michael Moritz is widely considered one of the world's VC investors - last week he was in Israel and shared his impressions
3. In Our name, a letter from Jewish students at Columbia University

MEDIA OF THE WEEK

Fresh off the press, here's the updated Israeli generative AI startup landscape we published in Calcalist ??????? . It maps 238 companies, nearly double the number of companies included in the previous version in Sep 2023. To date, Israeli GenAI startups raised $5.47 billion. It's been added to the Israel landscape collection on VC Cafe (source)

Congratulations to Eden Golan, representing Israel in the Eurovision, for making it to the finals, despite a hostile environment in Malmo, Sweden

The fastest growing category of US venture investment in 2024 is AI. Venture capitalists have invested $18.3 billion through the first four months of the year.

At this pace, we should expect AI startups to raise about $55b in 2024. (source)

Since 2014, venture firms have doubled in size, reaching a peak in 2021, and then halved in stunning reversal (source)

The AI agents ecosystem - an interesting report by Prosus Ventures

Databricks is riding the AI wave with a string of acquisitions. Here's their strategy map.

Work Trend Index Annual Report - Microsoft and LinkedIn just published their Work Trend Index Annual Report, revealing that AI adoption is surging in the workplace — calling 2024 the ‘year AI at work gets real’. (source)

In the satire corner of the week Roi Harel

That's all for this week. Thank you for reading. There's a lot to celebrate in our 'small' community! Keep on creating.

Eze Vidra