Weekly #FIRGUN Newsletter

As every Friday, it's my pleasure to share a weekly summary of the movers and shakers in Israeli tech and venture. If you're not yet subscribed, click the button get the next edition straight into your inbox.

"Firgun" (Hebrew: פירגון/ 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. More about Firgun and why it matters on VC Cafe: https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p

Naturally, I had to ask ChatGPT to help me with the definition of "Firgun" and how it's used in practice. Here's the answer:

"Firgun" is a Hebrew term that is often translated as "altruistic pleasure" or "kindness" or "generosity." It refers to the act of feeling happy or satisfied when others succeed or are fortunate, and is often used to describe a person who takes pleasure in the success or happiness of others. In practice, Firgun can be expressed in many ways, such as by offering congratulations, expressing appreciation, or by taking actions that help others achieve their goals. It is an important value in many cultures, and is particularly prevalent in Israeli culture.

Apple came out with the Apple Vision Pro

My quote of the week is:

"The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer." - Nolan Bushnell, "Finding the Next Steve Jobs"

NEW INVESTMENT ROUNDS

- Congratulations Noam Rosenfeld  and team  WaveBL  on your $26M series B to revolutionise global trade with blockchain technology.

- Mabruk  Dr. Yishai Ashlag  and team  Onebeat  on securing $10M in series B to help retailers manage supply and inventory with predictive AI!

- Nice job Eran Megiddo  and team  Maximal Learning  on your $5.7M seed round to help students learn with generative AI!

- Way to go  Liav Refael Chen  and team  Humanz  on your $5M series A to scale your AI based influencer marketing platform!

- Kudos  Shahar Levi  and team  Keepy AI  on coming out of the garage with $3.5M raised to date to combine people analytics with performance metrics!

EXITS

- Congratulations Roy Erlich and team enso.security (Part of Snyk) on the acquisition by Snyk estimated at $40M-50M

- Well done Omer Tadjer and team Comeet on the merger with Spark Hire, Inc. estimated at $50M value

- Mazal tov Gabriele Manasse and team Bablic (an Unbabel Company) on the acquisition by Unbabel for an undisclosed sum

- Congrats Yoni Leitersdorf and team Indeni (Acquired by BlueCat) on the acquisition by BlueCat for an undisclosed sum

NEW FUNDS

- Big congrats  Kfir Kachlon  and  Ovi Hamama  on the new $15M closing for 91 Ventures  fund to invest in pre-seed Israeli startups! Hope to find many opportunities to collaborate!

LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER:

1) Tel Aviv named world's third best start-up ecosystem in global report. And while we're on the subject of startup ecosystem report, check out the State of European Tech 2023 by Atomico

2) Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz published a seminal essay on AI titled "Why AI will save the world". Also worth checking out the A16Z AI canon a comprehensive list of sources on the development of AI.

3) Another week of generative AI bombastic headlines:

• OpenAI: Sam Altman visited Israel this week and told the president that Israel will play an important role in future AI development.
• LinkedIn came out with generative AI tools for ad copy
• NVIDIA Researchers manipulated Nvidia's AI features in ways that could reveal sensitive information
• Google has a new plan to help organizations apply basic security controls to their artificial intelligence systems and protect them from a new wave of cyber threats.
• Google DeepMind found ways to make coding much faster with generative AI
• Cohere , a startup working on generative AI for enterprise licensing, raised $270M series C from strategics including Nvidia, Oracle and Salesforce
• Watch the first AI generated short film -12 mins
• Runway generative AI for video editing Gen-2 is now available
• A very unflattering profile of Emad Mostaque, founder of Stability AI
• A report on the future of the creator economy, including generative AI

The list goes on, but check the 'housekeeping' section if you want to stat more frequently informed.

HOUSEKEEPING

📱 I got very positive feedback from participants in my #GENAI Whatsapp group but I'm considering where to take it next. Rather than 'come as you are' I'm going to make a new group that's invite-only and more curated. Fill this short form to express interest.

🎁 Please subscribe to my new Youtube Channel and TikTok channel - I post videos daily on Generative AI, startups and venture capital.

CHARTS OF THE WEEK

It's not yet summer, which is particularly quiet on the VC front in Europe, but the volume of deals is very low

The VC power law, backed up by 15+ years of data (via James Heath )

The 50 most promising AI companies according to Forbes AI50 (including Israel's Gong , Trigo and Imagen )

The harms/risks of AI summarised

Which trends have the biggest impact on the development of generative AI?

Market value of AI marketing in billions of USD

The size and growth of emerging trends in VC ( Yoram Wijngaarde )

And we couldn't finish the week without a few memes on the Apple vision Pro

VR etiquette in the office

The price tag

That's all for this week, thank you for reading. There's so much to celebrate in our "small" community! Keep on creating!

Eze Vidra