It’s #Firgun time!
The original version of #Firgun was published on LinkedIn. Subscribe to get the next edition 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. In November #FIRGUN officially celebrated 5 years. See my update on what I’ve learned from writing Firgun and what keeps me going. If someone forwarded this to you and you’d like to subscribe, you can find previous editions on my blog, VC Cafe.
This week continued a record year in Israeli exits with over $1.5 billion in new exits, both in the semiconductor space. With a new ceasefire announced yesterday with Lebanon (lets see if it holds) as well as quiet on the Iran front (on the surface) this could be the first prospect of sustained calm in some time for Israel. Many open questions remain on whether the threats have been removed (from either front) but for the first time in a while, we might see a return to normalcy, business as usual if you will, which will obviously also affect startups. Think travel, events, return of international investors, less disruption from reserves, alarms and sleepless nights. As an optimist (I gotta be), I hope one day we will see true peace in the Middle East, imagine how cool that could be…
In the wider tech world, it was a week of landmark model launches and industry shifts. Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.7, delivering major gains in advanced software engineering, agentic tasks, and high-resolution vision, the first Claude with 3x the visual capacity of its predecessor. OpenAI introduced GPT-Rosalind, a specialized AI model for life sciences and drug discovery, developed with partners including Moderna, Amgen, and Thermo Fisher Scientific. OpenAI also significantly upgraded its Codex Desktop app, adding computer use, an in-app browser, 90+ plugins, and multi-app automation capabilities. Netflix beat Q1 revenue estimates with $12.3B (16% YoY growth) but issued a weak Q2 outlook, sending shares down 8%; co-founder Reed Hastings announced he will step down from the board in June after 29 years. Snap Inc. cut 16% of its global workforce, roughly 1,000 jobs, citing AI-driven efficiencies that will reduce its annualised costs by over $500M. Sequoia Capital closed a $7B new fund, nearly double its 2022 comparable vehicle, marking its first major raise under new co-stewards Alfred Lin and Pat Grady. Accel also announced a fresh $5 billion fund to back late stage bets. Taiwan’s TSMC posted a record $18B quarterly profit, driven by the insatiable global demand for AI-specific semiconductors. And AEVEX, a US defence-tech and autonomous drone company, listed on the NYSE raising ~$312M at a valuation of up to $2.35B, a sign that defence AI is finding its way to public markets.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The best time to repair a roof is when the sun is shining.”
John F. Kennedy
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congratulations Shachar Hirshberg and team Artemis Security on raising a $70M just six months from launch to target AI driven cyber attacks!
- Mabruk Nuseir Yassin and team Nas Company on securing a $27M series A to help individuals launch their own businesses with AI tools (and for securing Nas.com!)
- Well done Naor Paz ?? and team Capsule Security on coming out of stealth with a $7M seed round for agentic AI security!
EXITS
- Huge congrats Ben R., Ronnen Lovinger and team DustPhotonics on the $1.2 billion acquisition by Credo for your photonic chip technology that enables faster, lower-cost data transfer in next-generation AI clusters!
- Well done Hesham Taha and team Teramount on the $430M acquisition by Molex for your optical chip technology!
- Mazal tov Ouriel Ohayon and team Zengo on the acquisition of your secure digital wallet by eToro for a reported $70M!
- Kudos Dr. Danny Bickson and team Visual Layer on the acquisition by Camtek for an undisclosed sum!
- Way to go Barry Cohen and team OrboGraph on your undisclosed acquisition by Kinective!
APPOINTMENTS
- Congrats Netanel Meir on the promotion to General Partner and Avi Shulman on your promotion to Partner at StageOne Ventures! Hope to find more opportunities to collaborate on together!
NEW FUNDS
- Way to go Jason Wolf and team Iron Nation Fund on securing $60M in fresh capital to support Israeli startups!
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
REMAGINE VENTURES/ VC CAFE
- VC Cafe got a new look this week! Check it out on vccafe.com
ISRAEL
- The Israeli Q1 2026 Equity Management Intelligence Report by altshare – stats about investments in Israeli startups by vertical and stage
- Shekel breaks below 3 to the dollar in first since 1995; exporters warn of economy risk by The Times of Israel
- Nearly 1 billion NIS were invested in Israel’s bio convergence program, according to new report by Israel Innovation Authority
GLOBAL
- The 2026 AI Index report by Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) claims that The U.S.-China AI model performance gap has effectively closed.
- The State of AI q1 2026 report by CB Insights shows that Private AI companies raised $226B in Q1’26, surpassing the full-year total for 2025 in just a single quarter.
- The AI50 of the 50 most promising AI companies by Forbes (and congrats to Israeli startup Cyera who made the list and Irregular who made the brink list!)
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
Tel Aviv continues to be one of the top international hubs for tech, according to Lenny Rachitsky State of the product job market in early 2026
Reinforcement learning is becoming a strategic priority for frontier labs and enterprises. Anthropic alone will invest over $1 billion in RL in 2026. Interesting study and landscape by Sapphire Ventures (source)
Building biology native data infrastructure for the AI era, by Bessemer Venture Partners (source)
Five frontiers for data infrastructure by Bessemer Venture Partners
The media universe in 2026, by Evan Shap?ro (source)
Digital media is approaching the efficient monetisation frontier
Anthropic is on a tear and quickly catching up with OpenAI, especially in US Enterprise by the Financial Times
A new Stanford HAI report says China has effectively erased the U.S.’s lead in AI. The U.S. still produces more top-tier AI models and higher-impact patents, while China leads in publication volume, citations, patent output, and industrial robot installations (source)
More M&A is on the way – big tech snaps AI capabilities before they scale according to CB Insights (source)
That’s all for this week, thank you for tuning in. There’s a lot to celebrate in our “small” community. Keep on creating!
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.
- Weekly Firgun Newsletter – April 17 2026 - April 17, 2026
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- New Firgun Newsletter – April 3 2026 - April 3, 2026