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. Next milestone: 21 years to VC Cafe in December! Time flies when you’re having fun.
I’m writing this edition from a flight back to London after a productive week in Israel, which included our AGMs, the Vintage Investment Partners 19th summit and many startup meetings. There’s a different energy in the air now in Israel. Maybe it’s because I’m surrounded by entrepreneurs, who are optimists in nature. But in my view, the founders that are launching new startups right now are not the ‘tourists’, they are the mission-driven and hungry. They know what market they are entering and are armed with a sense of purpose, a desire to tackle ambitious problems and go BIG. I’m grateful for the opportunity I have to support Israeli founders every day with Remagine Ventures!
In the wider tech world, OpenAI turned 10 today. ChatGPT was the most downloaded app of the year and perhaps the world’s most valuable private startup, but OpenAI is still in the danger zone, a week after announcing the ‘code red’ following the rapid success of Google’s Gemini 3 model. Today, OpenAI released a new model, 5.2, the most advanced thinking model yet. The Walt Disney Company invested $1 billion in OpenAI, and as part of the deal will license 200 Disney characters to Sora and will become a major customer. At the same time, Disney sent Google a cease-and-desist letter, accusing Google of “massive scale” copyright infringement. President Trump signed an executive order aimed at preempting a growing number of state AI laws, in order to have a single source of approval for AI companies. In the meanwhile, NVIDIA got the green light to sell H200 AI chips to China. Anthropic donated its Model Context Protocol (MCP) to the Linux foundation and established the Agentic AI Foundation. Unconventional AI, a new AI chip startup started by a former Intel Corporation AI head, raised a $475M ‘seed’ round. Cursor launched a new visual editor AI coding tool for designers. Instacart partnered with OpenAI on grocery shopping and checkout. Meta is working on a new AI model, code-name Avocado. Meta acquired an AI wearable startup Limitless. Meta plans to make deep cuts to its Metaverse efforts as it re-focuses on AI. Apple‘s head of interface design, Alan Dye, moved to Meta – maybe its all connected :-) It’s not clear that it will pass the regulator, but for the time being, Netflix is buying Warner Bros. Entertainment, owner of one of the biggest media catalogues as well as HBO for $72 billion. Prediction market Kalshi raised $1 billion at $11 billion valuation and signed a partnership with CNN. Runway launched GWM-1, its first world model, which uses frame-by-frame prediction to simulate physics.
I’ll take the opportunity to wish everyone celebrating a very Happy Hanukkah – let’s collectively let our light shine bright.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.” — Epicurus
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Big congrats Zohar Einy and team Port.io on your $100M series C (at $800M valuation) for. your internal developer-tool portal and agent orchestration layer!
- Impressive milestone Tal David and team Quantum Art on securing a $100M series A to advance your trapped-Ion full-stack quantum systems!
- Way to go David Mezuman and team Duve on your $60M series B for your hotel management system!
- Congrats Romi Gubes and team Sensi.AI on your $45M series C to detect and anticipate senior care events with your AI audio platform!
- Kudos Jonathan Hatzor and team Parametrix on your $27M series B for insurance coverage against cloud and data-centre outages!
- Big props Tamara Baksht and team VisIC Technologies Ltd. on securing $26M series B to develop Gallium Nitride (GaN) power semiconductors for electric mobility!
- Fantastic news Arnon Nir and team Shapes (formerly DreamTeam) on announcing your $24M in seed+series A funding for the first AI people OS!
- Mazal tov Roee Adler and team Hud on quietly raising $21M for your real-time production visibility for both engineers and AI agents!
- Great job Yair Weinberger and team Reindeer AI on coming out of stealth with $20M in funding to help enterprises get ‘unstuck’ with AI implementations by offering custom solutions!
- Let’s go Michael N. and team Prime Security on securing a $20M series A for your agentic security platform!
- Awesome stuff Ahikam Kaufman and team Safebooks AI on coming out of stealth with $15M in funding for a real-time automation engine for quote-to-revenue operations!
- Kol hakavod Yehuda Kogan and team Lin Health on securing $11M series A to scale your virtual health recovery platform for chronic pain!
- Well done Jonathan Gilat and team Medida on coming out of stealth with $4M in seed funding to turn smartphone scans into millimeter accurate renovation measurements!
- Proud of you Omer Ran Cohen and team Tappgo.com on coming out of stealth with an undisclosed pre-seed round to launch a new retention platform for consumer apps and mobile gaming studios!
- Good stuff Lior Zimmerman and team LISS on coming out of stealth with an undisclosed pre-seed round to launch a DTC surf-inspired outdoor brand!
EXITS
- Kudos Ran Lampert and team Infinipoint on the acquisition of your device verification technology by Outpost24 estimated at tens of millions!
NEW FUNDS
- Big congrats Omri Casspi and team Swish Ventures on the new $100M opportunity fund focused on growth stage Israeli tech investments!
- Kudos Omer Rabin and Matthew Goldstein on the launch of TLA.vc, a new $40M fund focused on AI startups building for the enterprise, also covering Israeli startups!
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
REMAGINE VENTURES/ VC CAFE
- The State of Seed and Pre-Seed in 2025: Bigger Bets, Leaner Teams, and the AI Distortion Field
- Tips for founders coming out of stealth
- ICYMI my post on ‘Note for Founders in stealth’
ISRAEL
- Israeli cybersecurity hits $4.4 billion record funding in 2025 – Over the past decade, overall funding in Israeli cybersecurity companies has increased by more than 500%, according to YL Ventures‘s the State of Cyber Nation 2025 report.
- Israeli shekel reaches three year record high in a sign of market confidence – by The Jewish Chronicle
GLOBAL
- The State of Seed 2025 – new report by Carta
- State of enterprise AI report by OpenAI
- The partners at Andreessen Horowitz shared their Big Ideas for Tech 2026 in 3 parts: part 1 (AI and infra) part 2 (American Dynamism) and part 3 (Crypto)
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
“One Israeli cyber startup funded every three days in 2025” – Guess what country ranked first in the number of cybersecurity startups? You got it, Israel. What is surprising is that Lithuania, a country of 2.8 million people ranked in third place! by StartupBlink
TelAviv ranked in the 15 place in PitchBook’s #VC Ecosystem Rankings comparing global cities based on the size and maturity of their startup networks (source)
The state of seed report deserves its own post as its full of insights. AI is leading in funding by far, the length of time between seed and series A is growing and there’s more capital for seed, but it’s concentrated in fewer companies, according to Carta and a16z speedrun.
It’s also a function of the fact that there’s less venture capital dollars around and they are VERY concentrated. In 2024, 75% of all venture capital raised by funds went to 35 firms.
The person of the year according to TIME? It’s the architects of AI, given their massive impact on the economy and everyday life (source)
The state of AI report by OpenRouter, Inc An Empirical 100 Trillion Token Study (source)
AI gadgets are bad right now, but their promise is huge… by The Wall Street Journal (source) – credit for visual Sacra (source)
The Data centre value chain market map by CB Insights is a doozie! (source)
That’s all for this week. Thanks 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.
