The original version of this newsletter was published on Linkedin. Subscribe now to get the next version in your inbox.
In case 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 the concept of Firgun and why it matters on VC Cafe: https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p
Greetings from Tel Aviv. I’ve been trying to come since May, and several flight cancellations later, I’m happy being back in Israel and there’s a buzz in the air. Israel was the only country to help the Druze, after the harrowing images coming from Al Suweida, Syria triggered Israeli Druze rushing to the border to help their people. It apparently only became newsworthy when Israel got involved. Amidst the headlines, it’s crucial not to lose sight of the 50 people (of which 21 are considered alive) to return to their loved ones. Each day that passes is a reminder of our shared responsibility — to keep them present in our hearts, in our voices, and in our actions. Today marks 650 days since October 7 – we must #BringThemHome NOW.
Highlights from H1 2025 in Israeli tech and venture: $9.3B in private funding, up 54% from Q4 2024, $39.2B in M&A across 60 deals, 69% of funding rounds included global investors, strong performance in cybersecurity, business software, fintech. In addition, the public market is showing signs of recovery and this week, Israeli startup Via confidentially filed for IPO, bringing investors and employees much needed liquidity. This week my team at Remagine Ventures and I released the latest Israeli Generative AI startup landscape: mapping over 342 Israeli GenAI startups that raised at least $1M in funding, and adding 198 new companies to the last version published in May 2024. See the links section below.
In the wider tech world, It’s been a week of rapid-fire AI innovation and eye-popping valuations. OpenAI debuted ChatGPT Agent, a general-purpose assistant aiming to replace your executive team (and maybe your intern), making an aim for commerce. The Windsurf drama ended this week with Google snapping the management and top talent for $2.4 billion and Cognition buying the rest. It’s the new ‘hackquisition’ or ‘hackquire’ model that is getting more popular in the US to avoid regulatory hurdles. Anthropic reportedly eyes a staggering $100B valuation on the back of $4B in annualised revenue. The company also launched a new product aimed at finance professionals. Another valuation jump belongs to Perplexity which is now worth $18B after an internal round. Swedish vibe coding Lovable raised a $200M series A and became a unicorn just 8 months from launch (valued at $1.8 billion). Substack raised a $100M round. Meta, hired senior Apple AI researchers (after poaching their boss last week) and is considering shifting to closed AI models… Scale AI is laying off 200 employees after ‘raising’ $14 billion from Meta. Microsoft launched Phi-4-mini-flash reasoning model, and motion capture to the “AI Economy Institute” and browser battles. Mistral AI launched Voxtral, an open-source AI audio model. NVIDIA got the clearance to sell AI chips to China… Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched Bedrock AgentCore, a platform to help businesses launch AI agents securely. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress passed the landmark Genius Act to regulate crypto stablecoins and moved to limit SEC oversight in favour of a more Web3-friendly regime. Runway launched Game Worlds, and will let users generate games. Moonvalley launches ethical AI video model and Israeli startup Decart launched a new ‘video to video’ model. On the lighter side, a viral “kiss cam” clip from a Coldplay concert exposed an affair between the CEO and CPO of Astronomer, which just closed a series D at $775M valuation…
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congratulations Jeremy Suard and team Exodigo on securing a $96M series B AI-driven subsurface intelligence!
- Well done Nadav Orbach and team RealSense on spinning out of Intel Corporation with a $50M series A for autonomous robot AI vision!
- Great stuff Dan Amiga
- Way to go Aviv Shapira and team XTEND on securing $30M in fresh funding to scale drone manufacturing in the US!
- Great job Idan Bar-Dov and team Heka Global on raising a $14M series A to tackle AI-fueled fraud epidemic!
- Fantastic news Nir Erez, Roy Bick and team Adaptive Learing on securing a $12M seed round for your new e-learning startup (still in stealth)
- Kudos Idan Raman ?? and team Anchor browser on securing a $6M seed round for your headful browser infra for AI agents!
- Congrats Almog Ohayon and team TandemTrace on coming out of stealth with an undisclosed seed round for a suite of AI agents capable of investigating and responding to threats autonomously!
EXITS
- Kudos Ido Susan and team DriveNets on the reported $650M secondary shares sale to AT&T giving employees and investors liquidity…
- Congrats Tom S. and team Hourly on the merger with weSure valuing the combined company at $53M!
- Best of luck Daniel Ramot and team Via on confidentially filing for IPO!
APPOINTMENTS
- Congrats Eliya Elon ? on joining Notable Capital as EIR, covering Israel!
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
VC CAFE / REMAGINE VENTURES
- Yesterday my team and I shared the updated 2025 Israeli generative AI startup landscape. You can see the post live on VC Cafe
- You can also track and compare to previous versions on the Remagine Ventures website
- The map was added to my 2025 Startup Landscape collection on VC Cafe
ISRAEL
- Mapping Israel’s GenAI boom: 342 startups that raised over $20 billion and counting – by CTech by Calcalist
- Israeli tech review Q2 2025 by IVC Data and Insights – in Q2 alone, Israeli startups raised $2.97 billion across 98 deals.
- Finder H1 2025 Report – Israel’s strongest first-half performance since 2022 by Startup Nation Central However, the optimism comes with two caveats: a weak job market and lack of investment diversification. More here.
- Despite war, Israel’s stock market is the world’s top performer – up 80% since October 7. A $550B tech-driven economy. World leader in R&D. Most start-ups per capita. Against all odds by the Financial Times
GLOBAL
- China is spending billions to win the AI race – Beijing is taking an industrial policy approach to help its A.I. companies close the gap with those in the United States. For example, China filed more AI-patent applications in 2024 than the US, EU and UK combined
- State of AI report by Vercel how are developers using AI
- Are seed venture funds facing an existential crisis? Interesting thoughts by Rob Go
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
I’m very proud to share the new Israeli generative AI startup landscape (July 2025) – we mapped 342 startups across 29 categories. Highest growth in companies since the previous landscape was in Cyber, healthcare and marketing tech. More on Calcalist and VC Cafe.
A new map of Israeli climate startups by PLANETech – Climate Change Technologies was added to my 2025 collection on VC Cafe. It’s not exhaustive, but aims to show the new players in this space.
Where did investments flow into Israeli startups in Q2 2025? Cyber, Fintech and Generative AI startups (source)
An Israeli startup boom is imminent in H2 2025, according to new report on funding and workforce trends by Dealigence (source)
The property and casualty insurance market is $800 billion a year in the US alone. Equal Ventures mapped the AI startups trying to shake up the industry (source)
I bet you didn’t know… After surpassing X in monthly active users (Android), Threads is nearing TikTok.
I like to try new AI tools every week. This week I tried Mozart AI, Cursor for Music creation
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.
- Weekly Firgun Newsletter – February 27, 2026 - February 27, 2026
- The Rise of the Personal AI Agent - February 26, 2026
- Pre-Seed Is Stronger than ever, but less startups are getting funded - February 25, 2026
