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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
This week the situation in G**a took a turn for the worse. While aid is being sent to G**a, it’s either not distributed by the UN or being looted by H***s who keep it away from the people who need it most. It created an unprecedented situation, where France and the UK prime ministers said they would reward Ha**s atrocities with a state, while the Arab Nations condemn Ha**s and ask them to lay down their weapons and release the hostages so there can be peace. In the meanwhile, the hostages are being starved and forgotten. We must #BRINGTHEMHOME
This week alone saw $471M in fresh funding announced for Israeli startups. That is in addition to another mega acquisition of an Israeli cybersecurity company as Palo Alto Networks agreed to acquire CyberArk for $25 billion, making 2025 an all time record year of exits for Israeli startups with the acquisition of Wiz by IPO of eToro and multi billion acquisitions of Melio, Next Insurance and many other smaller but significant exits. There’s no doubt that Israeli cyber is now trading at a premium.
In the wider tech world, OpenAI reached $12 billion in annualised revenue and ChatGPT has more than 700 million weekly active users. I wonder what GPT-5, expected to launch in August, will do to that figure. Figma went public at a $19 billion valuation, and the stock price has more than tripled in its first week. This is the biggest VC backed tech IPO in years. Mark Zuckerberg has published his vision for personal superintelligence: “AI that empowers individuals by accelerating progress in productivity, creativity, relationships, and health”. Will you trust him? Microsoft joined NVIDIA and is now worth more than $4 trillion. People slag off Apple for losing their edge, but they just posted record revenue growth since 2021. The iPhone is still king. Earlier this month the US government published its AI action plan, but nine of the top ten open-source models are now Chinese. Tesla robotaxis are expanding to other US cities including SF.
CALL FOR SPONSORS
For the first time ever, the #FIRGUN Newsletter is looking for sponsors! It’s going to be subtle and an opportunity to help members of this community reach each other. Apply here.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
? Benjamin Disraeli
NEW INVESTMENT ROUNDS
- Well done Niv Braun and team Noma Security on your $100M series B to defend companies against AI agent vulnerabilities!
- Congrats Amir Elichai and team Carbyne on your new $100M funding round for your cloud-based technologies that allow emergency dispatch centres and first-responder organisations to connect with callers without a dedicated app.
- Way to go Gil Barak and team BlinkOps on securing a $50M series B to build your to build out your micro agent cyber platform!
- Mabruk Hesham Taha and team Teramount on your $50M series A for your optical tech AI Chips technology that promises 100x data speeds and 70% power savings!
- Kol hakavod Sagi Ben Moshe and team Lumana on your $40M series A to scale your AI video surveillance platform!
- Mazel tov Ely Abramovitch and team Legion Security on coming out of stealth with $38M in funding (which includes a fresh $30M series A) to turn observation into round-the-clock digital SOC agents!
- Great news Rani Plaut and team AIR on securing a $23M series A to scale electric aircraft for personal and cargo use!
- Good stuff Eilon Elhadad and team Echo on coming out of stealth with a $15M seed round to secure application infrastructure!
- Rooting for you Itamar Sher and team Seal Security on your $13M series A to automate open-source vulnerability fixes!
- Thumbs up Galia Rosen Schwarz and team C8 Health on announcing a $12M Series A to power hospitals with on-demand clinical intelligence!
- Well done Nir Minerbi and team Classiq on adding $10M in strategic funding to your series C for your quantum computing operating system!
- Felicitations Shahar Tal and team Cyata on your $8.5M seed round to guard against rogue AI agents
- High five Yossi Reitblat and team Ryft on coming out of stealth with an $8M seed round to accelerate AI adoption with your iceberg management platform!
- Good on you Sharon Isaaci and team Tonic Security on coming out of stealth with $7M in seed funding to reshape Exposure Management!
EXITS
- Big congratulations Matt Cohen and team CyberArk on the $25 billion acquisition (Israel’s 2nd largest in history) by Palo Alto Networks!
- Way to go Leon Lerman and team Cynerio on the acquisition by Axonius for a reported $180M! Cynerio developed a healthcare IoT cybersecurity and asset management startup.
- Kudos Aviad Raz and team ReturnGO on the exit to Global-e of your package return management solution for an undisclosed sum!
- Well done Eldad Chai and team Satori on the acquisition by Commvault for an undisclosed sum!
- Congrats Ido Salomon and Liad Yosef who built MCP-UI and got ‘acqui-hired’ for millions by monday.com (the rise of the bootstrapp-vibe coders constinues!)
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
VC CAFE/ REMAGINE VENTURES
- Build your product roadmap on a solid foundation – why you should nail your vision, mission and purpose before you jump on to shipping
- Requests for startups 2025 – Part 4 – the latest YC list of requests for startups is a barometer for what the valley is looking to fund right now. Lean, AI first, fast growing startups that disrupt the old way things are done. But wasn’t it always the case?
- AI Agents will change how we build websites and apps – already, 50% of web traffic is bots. It’s expected to rise to 90% in the coming years as AI agents do actions on our behalf. What will it do to how we design websites and apps?
ISRAEL
- Israel’s prestigious $250M ARR club – including our very own Minute Media
- EU bid to exclude Israel from Horizon funding falls short of majority
- The Wiz effect – north American VCs crowd into Israel’s cybersecurity scene – by PitchBook
GLOBAL
- The economics of superintelligence – on the cover of The Economist
- The Substack AI report – how are authors using AI by Arielle Swedback
- For a while, shared ChatGPT conversations were discoverable by search engines. After the story blew up, openAI quickly removed the feature. Privacy nightmare or SEO opportunity?
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
The 8200 alumni ecosystem is vast
In our recently published Israeli generative AI landscape, we added 104 startups who claim to develop Agentic AI capabilities. A recent created by one of the companies active in the space and IVC showcased a non-exhaustive group of Israeli agentic AI startups (source)
Non AI users are most afraid of being replaced by AI
Fewer companies are actually raising (or getting to raise) venture capital, but those that do get big rounds at high prices. Data and graphic by Carta
Bridge Rounds at Historic Highs.
At seed: 40% of all rounds are bridges
Series A: 38% bridge rate
Q1 2024 peak: 42% of seed round
We know that 50% of web traffic today is bots, but with AI agents, that number is expected to jump to 90%… the impact on the Internet, which relies on ‘eye balls’ and clicks, is dramatic.
Leaked documents show how much Microsoft pays its developers. Related: an AI researcher working for Mira Murati‘s Thinking Machines Lab declined a $1 billion dollar offer from Meta.
I finally got my selfie with Jensen! Well, at least an AI generated one :-) get your own, courtesy of Justine Moore (source)
Ahead of Tisha BeAv, watch the movie ‘The Hidden Light’ about the quest of Rabbi Yoel Gold to find the Jewish heritage treasures buried in a secret chamber of the Vatican
That’s all for this week. Thank you 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
