It’s #Firgun time!
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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. In November #FIRGUN officially celebrated 5 years. See my update on what I’ve learned from writing Firgun and what keeps me going. I’m happy to share another milestone this week: it’s been 21 years (!) since I started my blog, https://www.vccafe.com.
Welcome to the first March edition and special wartime edition of Firgun. The week has been dominated by the start of Operation Epic Fury/ Roaring Lion. The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and 40 of his top henchmen, who for years vowed to destroy Israel and the US are now dead. An Iranian regime that has financed hatred, exported violence through countless proxies, and turned its weapons on its own people, as well as on its neighbours, for decades is facing the curtain. While most media is focused on the fears of the conflict expanding, it’s important to take into account also the potential impact of the operation succeeding. I’m optimistic for the people of Iran, for Israel and for the entire middle east, that a better, safer, more prosperous future is possible with a regime change.
In Israeli tech, millions of Israelis spent the week in and out of shelters following over 200 missile launches from both Iran and Lebanon aimed at civilian population centres all over the country. I continue to be in awe of the resilience and grit that Israeli founders had to show over the past two years and proud to play a small role supporting the Israeli startup ecosystem with Remagine Ventures. We signed our latest deal last week.
In the wider tech world, global venture hit $189B in February, setting an all-time monthly record. It was partly due to the announcement of the biggest round in history: OpenAI raised $110 billion ($730B pre money valuation). It also signed a Pentagon deal (after vowing to not allow military use), marking the formal end of the company’s hesitation toward military applications. This news coincided with the surprise early rollout of ChatGPT 5.4, which features “Hyper-Reasoning” capabilities that allow the model to autonomously correct its own logic errors in real-time. Meanwhile, Anthropic is facing a significant crisis as the U.S. Department of Commerce flagged a potential supply chain risk regarding their specialized inference hardware, leading to a high-stakes standoff over sovereignty in AI compute. A leaked memo by CEO Dario Amodei was followed by a public apology but the company said it will go to court oven their government ban. Google makes gmail, drive and docs ‘agent ready‘ for OpenClaw and the company launched Gemini CLI, an open-source AI agent that brings the power of Gemini directly into the developers terminal. Google also reached a settlement with Epic Games and has cut in-app purchase commissions to 20%, with an extra 5% if Google’s billing system is in use for Google Play apps.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused: Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure – and they will never have nuclear weapons.”
~Secretary of War Pete Hegseth
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Huge congrats to Omer Kaplan, Tomer Bar-Zeev and the ZyG team on your massive $58M seed round to build an “Agentic OS” for DTC brands!
- Way to go Nir Zuk, Ehud S. and team Cylake on coming out of stealth with $45M in seed funding for a new cybersecurity startup designed to operate without reliance on the public cloud!
- Kudos Gal Shafir and team at Fig Security for securing a $30M Series A! Strengthening SOC infrastucture resilience is more critical than ever.
- Well done Barak Klinghofer and team Reclaim Security on your $20M series A to close the growing gap between AI-powered attackers and slow manual patching!
- Mazal tov Liron Cohen Yanay and the AgriPass team on your $7.5M seed round. Using AI to replicate the decision-making of experienced farmers is a great example of “Physical AI” in action.
- Congratulations Tom Arad and the Bridge.cx team (a Remagine Ventures portfolio company) on your recent momentum and undisclosed pre-seed round helping brands reduce churn with post-sales AI agents!
EXITS
- Big congrats Nir Gazit and to the Traceloop (acquired by ServiceNow) team on your acquisition by ServiceNow for a reported $60M-$80M, proving the appetite for local AI observability.
- Well done Michal Mor and team SMARTSHOOTER on your TASE IPO to offer smarter fire control systems in defence tech!
IN MEMORIAM: ZAKI DJEMAL
This week, the ecosystem mourns the passing of Zaki Djemal, co-founder of Fresh Fund and a pioneer in the Israeli student-led VC space. Zaki was more than an investor; he was a brilliant bridge-builder who believed in the power of young talent and social impact. His kindness, vision, and “firgun” for others left an indelible mark on our community. He will be deeply missed. Our hearts go out to his family. BDE, may his memory forever be a blessing.
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
REMAGINE VENTURES / VC CAFE
- As shared in the Remagine Ventures Monthly Pulse sent yesterday, we made 3 new Israeli pre-seed investments in the past 3 months. All three startups remain in stealth. We are proud to be the amongst the first institutional check for these teams and can’t wait to share more about their journey soon.
- My post on the resilience of Israeli founders being put to the test once again and related video on Why Investors Stayed In Israel’s Tech Sector During War by Bloomberg
- Congratulations to our portfolio company, Pandorian on coming out of stealth yesterday. Check out their new website and brand launch video:
ISRAEL
- Israeli startups raised $750M in February, bringing the total first two months to $1.85 billion in funding. – by Globes
- IDF estimates Iran now firing just 20 missiles a day at Israel, down from 90 last Saturday – by The Times of Israel
- Michael Eisenberg interview with CNN and piece on Israeli startup resilience by Gil Dibner
GLOBAL
- State of Generative Media report by fal
- How AI is shaping the war in Iran – by Nature Magazine
- 2026 Software x AI Report: Software’s AI Inflection Point – by Sapphire Ventures
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
Touche, Yoav Galant
Global venture hits $189B in February, sets all-time monthly record – Global venture funding reached $189B in February, according to Crunchbase. It is the highest monthly total on record. Source: Crunchbase
The AI Agent Market map by CB Insights (source)
YC’s Garry Tan: half of AI agent usage is in software, most verticals are open. Anthropic’s recent research on AI agents shows that 49.7% of agent tool calls are in software engineering. The next category, back office automation, is at 9.1%. Most other domains sit below 5%.
AI is changing UI and UX. Creative conviction in the AI era – by Bessemer Venture Partners (source)
AI companies with $100M+ ARR (see Global links section for source)
OpenAI dismissed an employee for insider trading tied to bets on Polymarket. It appears to be the first confirmed big tech firing linked to prediction markets.
Big ideas to build in 2026 according to Andreessen Horowitz
Cluster munition falls on Tel Aviv last night. (credit: Haim Goldberg)
That’s all for this week. Thank you for tuning in. And may G’d bless our troops and those of the USA who are fighting for a better future for the entire middle east and the world.
Shabbat shalom and stay safe.
Eze Vidra
He is a former General Partner at Google Ventures (GV) in Europe, former head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe, and founding head of Campus London, Google's first startup hub. Eze writes on Israeli tech, venture capital, artificial intelligence, and founder strategy.
He is also the founder of Techbikers, a nonprofit that brings together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read.
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