It’s #Firgun time!
The original version of this newsletter was published on Linkedin.
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.
This was supposed to be a joyous week of celebration for Jewish people worldwide, but our hearts are heavy with the memory of the 15 lives lost in the horrific antisemitic Islamic terror attack at Bondi Beach. This tragedy is a painful reminder of the rising tide of antisemitism globally. Whether it’s chants in the streets of London, attacks on Jews in the NY Metro or protests outside synagogues. That said, in the face of darkness, there’s more need to spread light; we honour the fallen not by retreating and cowering, but by continuing to build, lead, and prove that hope and progress will always outlast hatred.
According to PwC 2025 Israel exits report report, Israeli exits were up 340% this year, reaching $58.8 billion in primary deals, driven heavily by Alphabet Inc.‘s $32 billion acquisition of Wiz. When including follow-on transactions, which count companies that previously exited (like CyberArk which was public but was acquired by Palo Alto Networks for $25 billion), the total amount climbs to $89.8 Billion in total, which is the second highest amount in Israel’s history.
In the wider tech world, OpenAI launched a new and improved ChatGPT Images, an image creation model, to counter the rising popularity of Google’s Nano Banana. OpenAI is reportedly in talks with Amazon about a potential $10 B investment that could support its next stage of growth. According to the The Wall Street Journal, the new round of funding could see OpenAI being valued at $840 billion, further fuelling fears of an AI bubble. Amazon is going through a big reshuffle in its AI team – longtime AGI head Rohit Prasad is departing and Peter Desantis was promoted to lead a unified AI/machine-learning and quantum push. Anthropic launches enterprise ‘Agent Skills’ and opens the standard, challenging OpenAI in workplace AI. Meta launched SAM Audio, the first unified AI model that can segment sound from complex audio mixtures using text, visual, and time span prompts. According to publications, Meta is also working on a new image and video model, code name Mango, that is due to be released in H1 2026. Google came out with two interesting experiments (only available in the US for now) – CC for personal productivity and Disco, a tool that makes web apps from browser tabs. Lovable raised a $330 M Series B at a $6.6B valuation, more than tripling its worth in 2025. Databricks also closed a massive $4 B+ funding round at a $134B valuation, signalling continued big bets on AI-driven data and analytics platforms. Looks like TikTok US sale to Oracle deal is set to close in January. Two dozen top artificial intelligence companies have signed on to join the federal government’s “Genesis Mission” to boost the use of emerging technology for scientific discovery and energy projects. Stripe launched a new ‘Agentic commerce suite‘ but it’s to sell to AI agents. According to the Merriam-Webster Inc. dictionary, the word of the year for 2025 is ‘Slop’ – great choice. Coursera to buy Udemy , creating $2.5B firm to target AI training…. And finally, in the most eye-brow raising headline of the week – Trump Media & Technology Group agreed to a $6 billion merger with TAE Technologies, Inc, a Google-backed fusion energy company.
This will be the last edition of #FIRGUN in 2025 as I’m taking a few days off to be with the family. Wishing all the readers of this newsletter a happy Chanukah and a joyous festive season and a happy, prosperous new year. See you again in 2026!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
This week’s quote of the week is in memoriam of Rabbi Eli Schlanger z”l from Chabad Sydney: may his memory forever be a blessing.
“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” – John Wesley
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Big respect Yotam Segev and team Cyera on securing $400M in funding at $9 billion valuation for your AI-powered, unified platform to help organisations discover, manage, and secure their sensitive data!
- Well done Shay Sandler and team Vega on your $120M series B (at a reported $700M valuation) for your cybersecurity platform that provides real-time identification and investigation of cyber threats!
- Good news Adi Sfadia and team Gilat Satellite Networks on raising $100M in private placement for dual use satellite-based broadband communications!
- Mazal tov Eilon Elhadad and team Echo on your $35M series A for your cloud security platform building cleaner Docker base images with fewer vulnerabilities using AI Agents!
- Congrats Liran Liberman and team Humanz on securing $15M in new funding to expand your footprint in the creator economy and influencer marketing space!
- Great job Or Latovitz and team Dux Security on securing $9M in seed funding to leverage agentic AI to identify exploitable security weaknesses and recommend rapid fixes!
EXITS
- Way to go Avi Yashar and team Dataloop AI on the acquisition by Dell Technologies for a reported $120M for your platform used for managing, labelling, and processing unstructured data used to train artificial intelligence models.
- Big congrats Itay Itzhaki and team Unleash on the acquisition by Zendesk estimated at tens of millions for your secure AI search for enterprise platform!
- Kudos Shmulik Yannay and team BladeRanger (TLV: BLRN) | Solar Drone Ltd on the acquisition by VisionWave for $21.6M!
NEW FUNDS
- Congrats Omry Ben David, Zvika Orron, Shlomo Dovrat and team Viola Ventures on the launch of two new funds totalling $250M, including a new early stage fund (Viola Ventures VII and a new opportunity fund for secondaries!) – hope to get a chance to collaborate with Remagine Ventures soon!
- Way to go Eitan Reisel and team vgames on launching a new $100M cohort financing vehicle for gaming portfolio companies in partnership with General Catalyst!
APPOINTMENTS
- Congrats Noam Inbar on your promotion to General Partner at Viola FinTech!
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
REMAGINE VENTURES/ VC CAFE
- 2025 was a banner year for Israeli startup exits but there’s a catch – it’s either mega deals (mainly in cyber) or sprint to exit model in AI
- Don’t make resolutions for 2026. Create your OKRs instead – resolutions require only words. Results take action.
- I may not have invested in openAI, anthropic or Mercor in their early stage, but… I am looking for that level of ambition in Israeli startups in case you need more context, I also recommend David Frankel‘s post about ‘patience compounds‘
ISRAEL
- Jensen Huang: Israel has become Nvidia’s second home – NVIDIA has chosen Israel to build a new, massive campus and R&D center, adding up to 10,000 new employees to the 5,000 already working at NVIDIA Israel today.
- Israeli tech’s dual reality: Mega deals vs. rapid AI exits – by Calcalist ???????
- Advanced fusion control breakthrough brings clean, reliable energy closer to reality – by The Jerusalem Post
GLOBAL
- State of AI 2025 report by Battery Ventures – “We are moving past the experimental phase and into the industrialization phase of AI adoption”
- State of Consumer AI in 2025 – by Andreessen Horowitz
- What to expect from CES 2026 – by CNET
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
AI in financial services is here: How firms are adopting and where they’re stuck by Insight Partners (source) – nice to see some Israeli’s on this list…
A new AI infrastructure stack is taking place (source)
The AI transformation- from Deloitte tech trends 2026 report (source)
2025 Open Models Year in Review (source)
The fastest growing software vendors in 2025 Brex
Excellent video from Nuseir Yassin – ‘let me show you my home’ – part of a broader series
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading.
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.
