It’s #Firgun time!
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Firgun (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.
Yesterday (July 2nd) marked 1,000 days since October 7th 2023. As we celebrate another week of innovation and entrepreneurship, it’s important to pause and remember what Israel has carried through these 1,000 days, and how much strength it takes to keep building.
According to the preliminary findings by IVC Data and Insights and LeumiTech, Israeli tech companies raised $7.6 billion in 193 rounds in H1/2026, up 52% from H1/2025. Q2 alone accounted for $4.2 billion in 86 rounds. AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, healthcare and defense tech leading the way. CTech by Calcalist recorders a slightly higher number – Israeli startups raised about $8.4 billion spread across a lower number of disclosed deals.
As America celebrates the 4th of July, it’s a good moment to remember that beyond the headlines, the U.S.–Israel relationship remains one of the most important strategic partnerships in the world. It is built on shared democratic values, deep security cooperation and a relentless belief in innovation, resilience and freedom. The news cycle may be noisy, but the fundamentals of the relationship remain strong.
In the wider tech world, Global venture funding reached a record $510 billion in H1 2026, with AI accounting for an unprecedented share of capital as investors continue concentrating behind category leaders. Baseten announced a $1.5 billion funding round at a reported $13 billion valuation, reinforcing that inference infrastructure has become one of the hottest segments in AI. Groq raised another $650 million to expand its AI inference cloud. The hyperscalers continued to double down on AI: Microsoft said it will invest $2.5 billion into Microsoft Frontier Co., a new operating business that is designed to embed 6,000 “AI and engineering experts” inside of customer organizations. ; Amazon said Project Kuiper / Amazon Leo now has nearly 400 satellites in orbit ahead of commercial service; Anthropic‘s Fable 5/ Mythos 5 is back to non-US customers. The company is reportedly working with Samsung Electronics on custom AI chips; and OpenAI made headlines with reports that it has discussed giving the U.S. government a 5% equity stake as part of a broader AI competitiveness initiative. On the regulatory front, Google lost its final appeal against the EU’s Android antitrust ruling, leaving a €4.1 billion fine in place for using Android to block rivals. X introduced Live Studio, a new livestreaming command center.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” — Theodore Roosevelt
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NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Nice milestone Guy Shimoni and team Shortical on securing $100M in user acquisition financing to scale your short form drama app reach!
- Congratulations Gal Aga and team Aligned on your $60 million Series B for your AI B2B sales workspace to help manage complex sales processes from first call to close.
- Well done Yadin Soffer and team Traysar Industries on emerging from stealth with $25 million in seed funding to develop autonomous systems for underground military environments.
- Way to go Erez Riahi and team Esh-Tech Systems on securing an $18M round to accelerate the deployment of DroneLight, an anti-drone laser defence system!
- Great stuff Shahar Erez and team arato.ai on coming out of stealth with a $10 million seed round to build an AI testing platform that simulates user interactions to identify risks in AI-driven products.
- Kudos Guy Eisenkot and team Baz on your $9 million seed extension (bringing total funding to $17 million) to scale your tools to review AI-generated code before bugs and security flaws reach production.
- Mazel tov Kim Aviv and team Mila on securing $2.5M pre-seed funding for your design-led intimate wellness brand!
EXITS
- Congratulations Sivan Rauscher Ganot and team SAM Seamless Network on the acquisition by Qualcomm for more than $150 million to protect over 500 million connected devices across 15 million networks!
- Well done Maor Ezer and team ai.work on the acquisition by ServiceNow for tens of millions of dollars for your AI agent platform for internal enterprise service and operational workflows.
- Way to go Ian Riopel and team Root Security on the acquisition by Belgian cyber unicorn Aikido Security for an estimated $70–100 million. Aikido will open a development center in Israel following the deal.
- Kudos Eran Shir and team Nexar Inc. on the merger with U.S.-based Nauto to create a global physical AI company focused on real-world driving systems. The combined platform will use billions of miles of driving data to train autonomous and fleet intelligence models.
- Not all exits have a happy ending, but they are nevertheless an outcome. This is the case for Itamar Jobani and team PayEm which was acquired this week by Top Group Holding for an estimated $4M in total for their expense management platform.
NEW FUNDS
- Kudos Yotam Alroy and team Pitlane Capital on launching a new $25M fund to buy out aging family businesses. The new fund will invest in search funds targeting small family businesses without successors.
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
VC CAFE/ REMAGINE VENTURES/ ISRAEL VC
- Israel’s $30B AI Sovereignty Bet – The government wants 100,000 GPUs, sovereign AI infrastructure and national strength in Cyber AI, Physical AI and deepfake defense. The opportunity for startups is in the layers Israel can actually win.
- Diligence Before Data – What pre-seed investors look for when there are no metrics yet
- What Israeli Founders Need to Know About Raising in H2 2026 – The honest state of early-stage funding: Data-driven signals from 128 tracked rounds in H1 2026
- What Israel Can Learn From Asia’s Innovation Playbook – Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore show that the next phase of innovation is not just about producing startups. It is about turning startups, talent, infrastructure and national strategy into durable technological advantage.
ISRAEL
- Israel’s tech sector raises $8.4 billion in the first half of 2026 – by CTech by Calcalist 129 funding rounds spanning AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, healthcare and defence signal sustained investor appetite despite an ongoing war and global economic uncertainty
- Israel attracted 9% of the global investment in Quantum technology – on The Times of Israel
- Wix saw it’s acquisition Base44 cross the $100M in ARR within one year. But now, the company developed its own coding models and it’s changing everything.
GLOBAL
- How an AI Bust Could Ripple Through The Global Economy – Plus, South Korea’s chip giants plot new plants, and AI brings bumper profits for memory producers
- McKinsey Quantum Technology Monitor 2026: A commercial tipping point by McKinsey & Company
- Are Mega-Funds Taking Over Seed? Murph Capital analyzed 20+ mega-funds transforming the early-stage landscape and unpacked how their AI-era allocations, lead rates, and pricing power really work
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
The first official H1 2026 fundraising snapshot by IVC Online and Leumitech – Israeli tech companies raised $7.6 billion in 193 rounds in H1/2026, up 52% from H1/2025. Q2 alone accounted for $4.2 billion in 86 rounds. Cyber companies led fundraising with $2.57 billion. Defense Tech and Quantum companies raised $846 million in just six months, approaching the $953 million raised during all of 2025. (source)
Israeli tech just posted its strongest 18 months in years and the data backs it up, not just the headlines by Israel VC (source) ]
Crunchbase News reports that global venture funding hit a record $510 billion in H1 – with OpenAI and Anthropic alone accounting for 43% of the total – as IPOs and M&A rebounded and billion-dollar rounds spread into AI infrastructure, defense, robotics, and healthcare. (source)
Bessemer Venture Partners’ Defense Tech Roadmap (source)
The top 20 startups by web traffic since 2020 by Menlo Ventures Deedy Das (source)
How professional services firms are building their AI strategies by CB Insights
The Loop infrastructure market map (source)
The industrials and manufacturing B2B software innovators landscape by Insight Partners
AI is creating an explosion in solopreneurs, according to a new report by Stripe (source)
Watch Palantir Technologies CEO Alex Karp talk about Israel this week on CNBC
Thanks for tuning it. That’s all for this week. There’s a lot to celebrate in our “small” community. Keep on creating!
Shabbat shalom and happy 4th!
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 – July 3 2026 - July 3, 2026
- What Israel Can Learn From Asia’s Innovation Playbook - July 1, 2026
- What Israeli Founders Need to Know About Raising in H2 2026 - June 30, 2026
