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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
It’s hard to comment on what’s going on in Israel without getting into politics. But it’s a fact to say that there are still 50 Israeli ho**ages still in G**a of which 21 are considered alive. They are being starved as we all saw in the videos. It’s Israel’s duty to #BRINGTHEMHOME.
Another week, another (several) multi billion dollar acquisitions of Israeli startups are in the headlines. This time it’s AppsFlyer, a mobile marketing unicorn, which reportedly in advanced talks to be acquired for up to $4.5 billion by a private equity firm. Another one is Sapiens, which was acquired this week by Advent for $2.5 billion.
Meanwhile, in a potentially historic event, Trump is meeting Putin today in Alaska, to discuss the end of the Russia-Ukraine war.
GPT-5 launch went sideways, as users complained of simple mistakes and less ‘human’ tone making the model sound “bland, generic”. This comes at a time when the company is looking to sell shares at $500 billion valuation. Also this week, Sam Altman launched a new Neuralink rival called Merge Labs. In a reversal, Trump allowed NVIDIA and AMD to sell advanced chips to China, but they must pay a 15% export fee. Nvidia revealed Cosmos Reason, a 7-billion-parameter “reasoning” vision language model for physical AI applications and robots. More in robotics: Apple wants to expand into home robots and AI security for the home. Remember the Figure robot? It can now fold laundry. xAI is now offering free access to Grok 4. Meta‘s rules have let bots have ‘sensual’ chats with kids. AI coding startup Cognition raised a massive $500M round. Also, Canadian AI startup Cohere raised $500M to compete on LLMs made specifically for enterprises. Anthropic‘s Claude Sonnet 4 Gets 1M Token Context. Higgsfield AI adds draw-to-video tool. Microsoft launched Copilot 3D tool. Perplexity added new Video Generation for max pro users, but maybe more importantly, Perplexity made a bid to buy Chrome from Google.
I’m currently on a rare break so this edition will be shorter than normal. I’ll be back to ‘normal programming’ next week.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”
Michael Jordan
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Big congrats Maor Sason and team Appcharge on the $58M series B to help game developers bypass traditional app store pathways for downloads and in-app purchases!
- Well done Jonathan Langer and team ACT (still in stealth) on raising a $20M seed round to tackle cloud security risks!
- Kudos Avi Messica and team NeoLogic on your $10M series A to develop energy-efficient AI data centre processors!
EXITS
- Congratulations Roni Al-Dor and team Sapiens on the $2.5 billion acquisition by Advent private equity! The Insurance software maker will go private at 64% premium as private equity bets on SaaS and AI transformation.
- Well done Kobi Freedman and team Findigs, Inc. on the $305M acquisition of your cybersecurity startup by Diginex [NASDAQ: DGNX]! (the crazy part is that this startup was in stealth!)
- Way to go Eran Shust and team Holisto on the $40M acquisition by trivago!
- Good luck Dan Teleman and team Nasus Pharma on the NYSE IPO!
- Kudos Omer Goldschmidt and team Evermile on the exit to Click Labs for an undisclosed sum!
APPOINTMENTS
- Congrats Ron Miasnik on being tapped to lead the Israel activity for Bain Capital Ventures!
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
VC CAFE/ REMAGINE VENTURES
- Why creators are flocking to platforms that pay – generative AI is giving creators super powers when it comes to creation, but to make money, they are leveraging existing consumer habits
- Join my new Reddit, Inc. community r/startuplandscapes for the latest and greatest startup maps and industry landscapes
- Calling GenAI founders in Israel! If you appeared in the Remagine Ventures most recent Generative AI landscape, please get in touch to get an exclusive event invite. Spaces are limited.
ISRAEL
- Why anti Zionism is also a form of Antisemitism – interview with Anti-Defamation League‘s Jonathan Greenblatt
- In first, Israeli cybersecurity startup exposes chatgpt vulnerability
- You can buy this sweater, unless you’re a zionist. And related – please report this shop to Etsy
GLOBAL
- The state of AI 2025 – including the new benchmarks for AI companies by Bessemer Venture Partners
- AI x Commerce – a new thesis on how AI is impacting e-commerce and online shopping by Andreessen Horowitz
- A deep dive into big tech’s AI energy boom, which is driving up electricity prices
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
Israel now has 60+ companies doing over $100M in ARR. That’s nearly the same number as all of Europe combined, a continent 10x larger in population (h/t Netanel Meir ?)
How industrial AI is impacting manufacturing by Hitachi Ventures (source)
The future of commerce will be ridden with AI agents doing the research, comparing and finding the best deals for you (source)
10 takeaways for AI founders from Bessemer’s new state of AI 2025 report (source)
Google was indeed indexing ChatGPT chats that were shared. A researcher quickly downloaded 1,800 of them and analysed how people really use ChatGPT (source)
The most popular sites in July 2025 according to Israel’s Similarweb (crazy growth for ChatGPT)
Top MBA programs produce more successful VC investors according to new research by Ilya Strebulaev (source) – hope that me being a graduate of London Business School pays off :-)
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.
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