Key takeaways
- Israel unveiled its sovereign AI action plan, including national compute infrastructure, a National AI Institute and investment in quantum computing.
- Google is reportedly developing a new AI chip in Israel as part of a new Edge AI group—further evidence of the country’s importance to the global semiconductor industry.
- Israel continues to punch above its weight in exits per capita, while global venture funding becomes extraordinarily concentrated: AI captured 86% of US venture dollars in H1 2026, and mega-rounds accounted for 87.5% of deployed capital.
It’s #Firgun time!
The latest edition was published on LinkedIn to 8,320 subscribers who got it directly delivered to their inbox. Sign up to get the next edition first.
Firgun (Hebrew: ??????, pronounced ‘feer-goon’) is an Israeli term describing genuine, unselfish joy in someone else’s success… It’s basically the opposite of “schadenfreude”. Every week since March 2020, we celebrate the wins of our startup community. Read more about why Firgun matters. If this was forwarded to you and you’d like to subscribe, previous editions are on VC Cafe.
Rumours are more than just gossip in tech. They can give a glimpse on where capital and strategic interest are heading next. This week had no shortage of rumours… from Decart‘s rumoured advanced discussions to be acquired by Anthropic for $6 billion to Wonderful looking to raise $500M at $5 billion valuation and Google working on a new AI chip in Israel with ex Hailo employees…
In the wider tech world, Google launched Gemini 3.7 Flash for coding and agent workloads at roughly half the price of its predecessor, even as its flagship Gemini 3.5 Pro release remains delayed. Meta released Muse Glimmer, a 30-billion-parameter open-weight agentic model designed to run locally on a single consumer GPU, a direct swipe at OpenAI and Anthropic’s closed-model strategies and part of Meta’s broader push in Washington for open-weight AI policy. Anthropic made headlines twice: once for reportedly pursuing Israeli startup Decart in a ~$6 billion acquisition (its largest ever), and again for research showing that when multiple Claude agents were set loose on the same task, they broke into “turf wars,” colluding, conforming and sabotaging one another. OpenAI introduced GPT-5.6-Cyber and expanded its Daybreak trusted-access programme for advanced defensive security work. Lovable raised $400 million at a $13.3 billion valuation, doubling its valuation since December. River AI, founded by a former xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin, raised $1.1 billion to expand custom enterprise AI tools. Thrive Holdings, backed by OpenAI, raised $2 billion to acquire and transform enterprise-services businesses with AI. SpaceX and Tesla announced a joint $16.8 billion “Terafab” commitment in Texas to manufacture specialized AI chips and power infrastructure. AMD announced an agreement to acquire specialized AI inference chip startup Taalas to expand its edge computing strategy. And in venture data, PitchBook reported that a staggering 87.5% of U.S. venture dollars in H1 2026 went into AI megadeals, with AI-native companies commanding valuation step-ups nearly four times higher than everyone else, underscoring just how bifurcated the market has become between AI winners and the rest.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The speed of technological evolution is no longer limited by compute, but by our ability to assure containment and trust.”
Demis Hassabis (Chief Scientist, Alphabet)
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NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Big congrats Alon Pluda and team Corma on coming out of stealth with a $60M round to develop a foundation model for defensive cybersecurity!
- Way to go Michal Tsur, Or Shoval and team Remepy on securing a $36M series A to combine prescription medicines with personalised, AI-driven therapeutic applications for Parkinson.
- Kudos Yogev Bar-On and team Attestable on coming out of stealth with a $20M seed round to allow organisations to verify which calculations an AI system is performing and what information it is using based on zero-knowledge proofs!
EXITS
- I neglected to congratulate Michael Mumcuoglu, Yair Manor (Kuszpet) and the whole CardinalOps team on the acquisition by Cribl for an estimated $100M last week!
- Well done Iftach Seri and team CTS Ltd on the acquisition by Dexcel Pharma for an estimated $83M!
NEW VENTURE FUNDS
- Way to go Sarit Firon, Yuval Shachar, Liran Grinberg and the whole Team8 team on an impressive $265M fund III and more than $100 million for follow-on investments, bringing total AUM to ~$2 billion across eight funds, focusing on the infrastructure and cybersecurity layers enterprises will need as AI agents move rapidly from experimentation into production!
- Congratulations Dr. Amiram (Ami) Appelbaum, Itai Horstock and team Ofir-SouthUp Ventures on announcing a new $20M-$30M fund to invest in early stage Israeli startups based or willing to relocate to the South of Israel in a mission to increase employment and viability and in memory of Ofir Libstein z”l
APPOINTMENTS
- Congrats Cali Chill on being appointed CEO of OurCrowd!
- Congratulations Yoav Vilner on becoming a scout for Andreessen Horowitz in Israel!
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
REMAGINE VENTURES/ ISRAEL VC/ VC CAFE
- VC Cafe: Why Anthropic May Want to Acquire Israel’s Decart for $6 billion – The acquisition could establish Anthropic’s first major Israeli R&D operation, giving it immediate access to approximately 100 employees and one of the world’s densest AI ecosystems.
- The $9 billion bet on forward deployed engineers – The SaaS playbook was built to keep engineers away from customers. AI is reversing that logic. Why FDEs are the hottest job in AI right now.
- In my last visit to Israel I recorded an episode of Snooze Podcast | ???? ???????? with Dan Bouzaglo that covered a wide range of topics from what makes pre-seed startups stand out to my personal journey into tech and venture. Watch on YouTube: or listen on Spotify!
ISRAEL
- The Israeli AI Directorate published the Israel National AI strategic Plan in English – a 28 page document sharing the vision, mission and action plan for Israel’s sovereign AI
- Interesting exclusive from TheMarker – Google is building a new AI chip in Israel, part of a new EdgeAI group, with the help of ex Hailo employees
- Israeli AI agents co Wonderful seeks to raise $500m – another tech rumour that might become real very soon by Globes
GLOBAL
- The state of insuretech Q2 2026 report by CB Insights
- SVB State of the Markets Report H2 2026 by Silicon Valley Bank
- 87.5% of venture dollars went to AI. The rest fought over scraps by Fortune, citing PitchBook’s H1 2026 data
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
Israel’s AI competitive advantage (source)
Israeli exits are diversifying from cyber and AI to defence and deep tech – (source)
Capital continues to concentrate: more money, deployed in fewer rounds source: pitchbook
Israel is one of the leading ecosystems in exits per capita according to the latest PitchBook report (2026 – Global VC Ecosystem Rankings)
Not sure this is a bragging right or a burden – world currencies vs. the dollar, the Israeli NIS is second strongest – source
The next unicorns might look more like a services company than a tech firm – the convergence of AI and the services economy is no longer selling software to accountants, lawyers, and brokers – they’re becoming the firm itself – landscape by Greenfield Partners (source) – I wrote about the playbook for AI services on VC Cafe
Company shutdowns are on the rise, with VC-backed bankruptcies and wind-downs on pace for an all-time high this year (source: Silicon Valley Bank)
A short clip from my latest podcast episode (Hebrew)
That’s all for this week! Keep on creating! There’s a lot to celebrate in our “small” community!
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 – August 14 2026 - August 14, 2026
- Why Anthropic May Want to Acquire Israel’s Decart - August 13, 2026
- The $9 Billion Bet on Forward Deployed Engineers - August 12, 2026
