The original version of #Firgun was posted on Linkedin. Subscribe to get the next edition in your inbox.
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
The newspapers are filled with news about the released Israeli hostages that were reunited with their families after over 2 years of hell. I’m so grateful to have them back. As one entrepreneur put it, we can finally breathe again. But the job is not yet done: the remains of 13 host***s are still in G**a and we must #BRINGTHEMHOME to bring this dark period to a close. I appreciated the energy the US government is putting to make sure that the ceasefire holds this week with the visits of VP JD Vance and Marco Rubio. The road is still long but we have to be optimistic.
In the wider tech world, US VCs have already invested over $161 billion in AI companies this year. In case you needed more proof, the browser war is fully on, with OpenAI launching their new AI-browser Atlas, and Microsoft joining the party two days later with their own co-pilot Edge browser. Meanwhile Anthropic and Google announced a partnership worth tends of billions giving Anthropic access to 1M TPUs and 1GW of capacity in 2026. Google also announced its first ‘vibe coding’ app and while it’s not a browser, Claude is now available on desktop. Amazon Web Services (AWS) brought down the Internet this week taking with it Reddit, Inc., Perplexity Airtable and smart bed Eight Sleep which left beds overheating and reclined during the outage. It blamed a ‘faulty automation’ for the glitch. A big progress for Quantum this week: Google‘s Willow Chip ran 13,000 times faster than the world’s best supercomputer, demonstrating the first-ever algorithm to achieve verifiable quantum advantage on hardware. AI is coming for our jobs, even in AI. Meta laid off 600 people from their AI division as they focus on superintelligence. AI needs a friendly face, so Microsoft released Mico, a new version of Clippy. Prediction markets are getting very hot (see links section below) and DraftKings Inc. is entering the foray with the acquisition of Railbird. The National Hockey League (NHL) becomes the first sports league to partner with Kalshi and Polymarket. Electronic Arts (EA) signed a partnership with Stability AI to bring more AI to game creation. Finally, President Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao from prison. DeepSeek launched an open source model that can compress text 10x using OCR. And finally, Israeli startup Lightricks unveiled a new open-source AI video generation model, LTX-2, that delivers 4K clips with audio in seconds
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Anyone who does not believe in miracles is not a realist.” – David Ben Gurion
NEW FUNDING ROUNDS
- Congratulations Israel Krush and team Hyro on securing a $45M series C to scale AI automation in US healthcare!
- Well done Noam Maital and team Darwin AI on your $15M series A to help governments leverage AI!
- Kudos Eden Ben Simon and team GammaTime on your $14M seed round to bring short form dramas and next-gen entertainment to our phones!
- Mabruk Aviv Frenkel, PhD and team Moonshot AI on announcing $10m in seed founding (includes a previously undisclosed $3M pre-seed) to help websites run A/B testing with AI!
- Mazel tov Idan Raman ?? and team Anchor Browser on unveiling a $6M seed round to bring AI automation to the browser!
- Way to go Yuval Shmul Shuminer and team Piere on securing a $2.1M pre-seed round to power the future of self-driving money!
EXITS
- Well done Yaron Shapira and team 8fig on the acquisition by BizCap® for an undisclosed sum to expand AI powered lending to SMEs!
- Congrats Ori Nurieli and team StudyWise.io by Collage AI (via MORNINGSIDE VENTURES LIMITED) for an undisclosed sum. The team started the company in the midst of the war and served in reserves duty while growing the startup!
NEW FUNDS
- Big congrats Gigi Levy-Weiss, Sarai Bronfeld and team NFX on announcing $325M fourth fund, focused on early stage startups including Israel!
- Kudos Alon Lifshitz and team Aurelius Capital on announcing a new $50M fund (out of a target of $150M) focused on Israeli defence technology!
APPPOINTMENTS
- Congrats Itay Inbar on being appointed as Partner at Greenfield Partners focusing on Israeli growth startups!
- Welcome Cali Chill as the new managing partner of OurCrowd and wishing health and a long-life to legend Jonathan Medved who pioneered a category in his high-impact and 14 year leadership as he moves into Chairman role.
- If the news are true, respect Michael Eisenberg on your appointment as rep to US center overseeing ceasefire
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
REMAGINE VENTURES/ VC CAFE
- AI Slop, scarcity and the future of the creator economy – everyone can create content more easily now, so can creators continue making a living online?
- Everything is amazing right now and nobody is happy – it’s human nature to complain, but take a moment to appreciate how far technology has come
- Why prediction markets are the next multi-billion dollar asset class – the rise of prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, and the opportunities for startups and investors alike
ISRAEL
- Ceasefire lifts prospects of Israeli startups and funds – by the The Wall Street Journal
- The “Next Billion Dollar Startups” selection by Forbes Israel has some interesting companies featured
- Mega Or and Nebius unveil $300m data center in Modi’in to power Israel’s AI sector – This is the largest AI computing facility in Israel, 25% of which will be allocated to the Israel Innovation Authority for the operation of the national supercomputer
GLOBAL
- The state of Crypto in 2025 by Andreessen Horowitz
- A 42-page guide on how to use AI day-to-day at work, by Perplexity
- The latest ‘Public Markets’ updat by the folks at Coatue Management
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
Israel is one of the more optimistic countries about the use of AI in daily life…
This week was a good reminder of this :-) (source)
The state of AI in Healthcare landscape by Menlo Ventures added to my Reddit community r/startuplandscapes (source)
There are ~40M-70M active crypto users worldwide, an increase of ~10M over the last year and the Crypto market cap tops $4T in 2025 as wallet users +20% YoY to record high (source)
The 100 most Popular Investment Books
News websites are in trouble…
A humorous finish. “Ceasefire? how dare you!” Great satire clip by Israel’s SNL-like Eretz Nehederet featuring Greta…
That’s all for this week. Thank you for tuning in – we’re now over 7,000 subscribers strong!
A good reminder that there’s a lot to celebrate in our “small” community! Keep on creating!
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.
