Alice raised $140 million as AI security emerged as this week’s central theme, while Israeli companies pursued acquisitions across payments, agritech and cybersecurity. Globally, Nvidia’s reported $12.9 billion Hugging Face deal highlighted the accelerating consolidation of the AI stack.
Israeli tech funding remained quiet, but exits heated up with more than $670 million in announced acquisitions. Globally, capital continued to pour into AI infrastructure, chips, video and physical AI as concerns around governance and agent security intensified.
Rumours are more than just gossip in tech. When you hear that Anthropic may acquire Decart for $6 billion, or that Wonderful is looking to raise $500 million at a $5 billion valuation, it signals where capital and strategic buyers are directing their attention. There has been plenty of that in Israeli tech this week.
While August tends to be quieter as most people are still on their summer holidays, this week Israeli startups announced $314 million in disclosed funding plus
Visa’s $2.4 billion acquisition of BioCatch
This week in Israeli tech, the cyber and AI-agent-security boom kept compounding: four separate Israeli startups building tools to secure AI agents and machine identities: Onyx, Mate, Hush Security and Way Security, all announced funding within days of each other.
Israeli tech showed its enduring strength in cybersecurity, with three startups emerging from stealth after raising a combined $340 million. But the same week brought another painful wave of layoffs, including monday.com cutting 20% of its workforce. AI-driven automation is part of the story, but so is the unusually strong shekel, which is increasing dollar-denominated costs and shortening runways for Israeli companies.
I spent just over 48 hours in Israel this week and left feeling optimistic. Away from the headlines, founders are building, investors are backing them, and Bank of America this week ranked Israel among the world's leading AI hubs. In this edition: why tokenmaxxing is the wrong metric, the biggest AI stories, funding rounds, exits and the wins worth celebrating across our "small" community.
Did you know that H1 2026 produced more Israeli unicorns than any other FULL year before? Also, what are the 5 areas most attractive for AI infrastructure according to Bessemer? and what is the hottest new AI category according to Benchmark?
Global venture funding hit a record $510 billion in H1, and Israeli startups raised $8.4 billion in this period. Don't miss this Special 4th of July edition!
Quote of the week:
If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact - not to be solved, but to be coped with over time.” - Shimon Peres
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