
The unique model of this article used to be revealed on Linkedin.
The phrase “Firgun” (pronounced ‘feer-goon’) is an off-the-cuff fashionable Hebrew time period and idea in Israeli tradition (at the beginning Yiddish), which describes authentic, unselfish pleasure or satisfaction within the accomplishment of the opposite individual. It’s the other of “schadenfreude”. Firgun is all about surely feeling and expressing happiness, satisfaction, or admiration for any individual else’s accomplishments, just right fortune, or well-being. Extra about Firgun and why it issues on VC Cafe: https://lnkd.in/dg2a86p

It’s arduous to not get emotional seeing the reunion of the Israeli ho****es that experience returned with their households. It’s additionally arduous to forget about the staging that has been arrange as they’re passed to the Purple Go. Israel receives individuals who had been abducted from their properties, together with 80 yr outdated Gadi Mozes, or 29 yr outdated Arbel Yehud, who used to be abducted from her house and saved most commonly on my own in tunnels in go back to masses of convicted te****ists who dedicated heinous crimes. It’s now not rocket science to peer that it’s a gorgeous dangerous deal. However I’m thankful for each Israeli this is returned safely. We should now not fail to remember them and #BRINGTHEMHOME, they all.
There’s a announcing that is going like this “There are a long time the place not anything occurs; and there are weeks the place a long time occur”. That might be a correct description of the previous week. From Stargate being introduced as the brand new “Apollo” program in the United States with an anticipated $500 billion in AI infrastructure over the approaching years (Trump’s first press convention of his tenure, which displays how a lot of a concern AI takes on this management), to the explosion of DeepSeek AI, a Chinese language ‘reasoning’ LLM which exceeded OpenAI‘s o1 type at 3-5% of the fee. A visible type from the similar corporate used to be additionally stated to exceed Dall-e 3. Deepseek changed into probably the most downloaded app in the United States in a single day. The Deepseek information noticed $1 trillion erased from the United States inventory marketplace (NVIDIA on my own shed $600 billion of marketplace cap, the most important ever drop in one day in US historical past). Any other Chinese language corporate, Alibaba Staff offered, Qwen2.5-Max, appearing complex reasoning and code technology duties whilst decreasing infrastructure prices by means of as much as 60%.
The scoop at the a lot less expensive, similarly or extra environment friendly Chinese language fashions led to an enormous quantity of hypothesis: Is AI a bubble? Did Deepseek truly set up to succeed in this with $5M? May extra sources and top-tier {hardware} imply AGI is simply across the nook? The reality will take time to percolate, Deepseek claimed they used simplest 5,000 GPUs- and outdated ones at that and the actual quantity is estimated at 50,000 (it’s being investigated if the chips had been got in Singapore, side-stepping the export ban to China). Later within the week it used to be published that Deepseek has most likely copied code and information from ChatGPT, is perhaps passing all of the utilization information to China and because of this it’s has already been banned by means of a number of organisations and governments (Italy, US for starters).
AI is having its second. World AI investment surged previous the $100B mark for the primary time ever in 2024 and simply by this week’s bulletins, it’s almost definitely that can a minimum of double that quantity in 2025. OpenAI introduced “Operator”, its first AI agent this is succesful to finish duties autonomously by means of surfing the Web and ChatGPT Gov introduced with 18M+ activates from 90K govt customers. OpenAI introduced it’ll be elevating any other $40 billion at a whooping $340 billion valuation. Meta hit the panic button and arrange a number of battle rooms to dissect Deepseek. Zuckerberg stated it’ll proceed making an investment in AI with intense CAPEX, including $65bn into AI building. Pika introduced its new video type, 2.1, with 1080p solution and stepped forward human characters. Google introduced Gemini 2.0 Flash Pondering Style and quietly introduced its subsequent flagship type, Gemini 2.0 professional experimental. Samsung Electronics introduced an XR headset with Google to rival the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional. ElevenLabs, the voice cloning AI startup, tripled its worth in 12 months to $3.3 billion because it raised $250M sequence C led by means of A16Z. Increase Supersonic, a startup that objectives to construct the successor to Concorde, broke the sound barrier in a ancient check flight.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“There are moments in historical past when the entirety adjustments. We name them revolutions.” —Yuval Noah Harari
NEW VENTURE DEALS
Superior information Avi Meir and crew TravelPerk in your newest $200M elevate at a $2.7 billion valuation (2x the former spherical) to proceed scaling your company trip control platform!
Congratulations Nadav Czerninski and crew Oligo Safety on securing a $50M sequence B on your utility detection and reaction cybersecurity tech!
Kudos Amir Hever and crew UVeye on elevating $41M in new fairness investment (along with $150M in debt) to scale your AI powered automobile inspection programs!
Strategy to cross Roi Ravhon and crew Finout and elevating a $40M sequence C on your monetary operations platform for companies!
Just right stuff Noa Shelach and crew Lutris Pharma on elevating a $30M sequence B to enhance anti-cancer treatments by means of decreasing cutaneous dose-limiting toxicity!
Neatly accomplished Ilan Yeshua and crew Seraphic Safety on securing a $29 million Collection A to grow to be any browser right into a protected one!
Just right on you Rom Lakritz and crew Anchor on elevating a $20M sequence A on your automatic bill control and assortment platform!
Congrats Ofir Har-Chen and crew Seize Safety on elevating a $20M sequence A on your non-human identification safety platform!
Mazel tov Itamar Apelblat and crew Token Safety in your $20M sequence A to lend a hand enterprises protected their device identities!
Incredible milestone Maor Goldberg and crew Backline AI on elevating a $9M seed spherical on your an self reliant safety remediation platform!
Giant congrats Man Eisenkot and crew Baz on popping out of stealth with an $8M seed spherical on your AI Code Reviewer!
Kol hakavod Gal Aga and crew Aligned on elevating an $8M sequence A to lend a hand gross sales groups deliver automation to the endeavor gross sales procedure!
Stay up the great paintings Roy Sheinfeld and crew Breez and congrats in your $5M elevate to boost up international Bitcoin bills adoption!
Giant thumbs up Naama Manova-Twito and crew MarkeTeam.ai on elevating $3M on your office, self reliant AI brokers!
Closing however now not least, nicely accomplished Yosi Sabag and crew Bitstock | TBC on elevating $400,000 to lend a hand customers purchase crypto!
EXITS
LINKS FOR YOUR BROWSER
ISRAEL
We launched an enormous useful resource of 80+ 2025 pattern and forecast experiences throughout classes, by way of the Remagine Ventures publication. You’ll be able to in finding the hyperlink (and subscribe) right here.
Beating China at their very own sport: Why DeepSeek is excellent information for Israeli tech – by means of Calcalist ???????
The brand new area economic system is projected to succeed in $1 trillion by means of 2040. A brand new record by means of Startup Country Central shines a mild on 104 Israeli startups working within the area tech ecosystem.
Bonus: Israeli startup PLAYO.AI Introduces Click on-to-Sport AI Technology That Creates Playable 3-d Video games in Underneath a Minute (disclosure: it’s one in all our portfolio firms at Remagine Ventures)
Wiz Analysis Uncovers Uncovered DeepSeek Database Leaking Delicate Data, Together with Chat Historical past
GLOBAL
Ten rules for construction robust vertical AI companies – by means of Bessemer Undertaking Companions
Attention-grabbing slide deck by means of Evan Shap?ro on the state of US media after tech disruption.
Deepseek: Innovation or overhype? by means of Dario Amodei, founding father of Anthropic and What did DeepSeek work out about reasoning with DeepSeek-R1? by means of Sean Goedecke from GitHub.
MEDIA OF THE WEEK
I might argue that China will have to be a lot upper in this listing following the previous week occasions, however consistent with this find out about by means of StartupBlink Israel rank’s 2nd globally in AI.
The Israeli area tech startup panorama, that includes 104 startups in key spaces of building, together with satellite tv for pc communications, area exploration, and comparable applied sciences has been added to my 2025 Israeli startup panorama assortment on VC Cafe
From 2014 to 2024, native tech gaming firms raised $3 billion in 464 offers. Gaming exits totalled $10. 9 billion in 60 offers. Then again, because the peak of Covid, investment for Israeli gaming startups has declined at a fast clip. At Remagine Ventures we’re actively on the lookout for pre-seed Israeli gaming startups – succeed in out to us!
Knowledge by means of @IVC
It’s getting an increasing number of tough to boost a Collection A spherical, and—because of this—startups are caught in seed for longer.
DeepSeek simply launched any other open-source type that beats DALL-E 3 and Strong Diffusion. Janus-Professional is a unified working out and technology MLLM. It decouples visible encoding for multimodal working out and technology. It’s to be had for unfastened obtain.
Till now, nearly all of funding and VC cash in in generative AI used to be on the infrastructure degree. Something to believe, is wether the release of Deepseek R1, and different more cost effective fashions which might be open supply and will run in the community, imply that now could be the time of the appliance layer to polish?
The 5 ranges of AI agent evolution, by means of NFX (supply)
The usage of the label “AI” has no important affect on customers’ willingness to pay and accept as true with consistent with a find out about by means of Irrational Labs (supply)
Voice AI Brokers marketplace map by means of A16 – New Andreessen Horowitz thesis – an replace on Voice AI
World AI investment surged previous the $100B mark for the primary time ever in 2024.
AI is using a investment frenzy within the personal markets GP Bullhound
In spite of everything, no phrases wanted right here.
That’s fascinated about this week. There’s so much to rejoice in our “small” group! Stay on growing!
Eze is managing spouse of Remagine Ventures, a seed fund making an investment in formidable founders on the intersection of tech, leisure, gaming and trade with a focus on Israel.
I am a former normal spouse at google ventures, head of Google for Marketers in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google’s first bodily hub for startups.
I am additionally the founding father of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing in combination the startup ecosystem on biking demanding situations in toughen of Room to Learn. Since inception in 2012 we’ve got constructed 11 colleges and 50 libraries within the creating international.
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