Hi everyone,

Rosh Hashanah is a fitting moment to celebrate people who believe they can make the future better. Starting a company takes that kind of optimism, and this week brought plenty of reminders of it across our startup community. Wishing everyone celebrating a sweet new year, with health, peace and more opportunities to build together.

We also mark 25 years since September 11, remembering the lives lost, the families affected and the courage of those who rushed to help.

This week, Covenant emerged from stealth with more than $250 million raised across three rounds, while Nir Zuk’s Cylake secured $245 million through a convertible note. Fresh funding also went to WINT, Lasso, Cymphony, Euno and HydroSight. On the exit side, Kiteworks acquired Bonfy.AI, and Prytek acquired Scanovate’s activities in a transaction valued at approximately $50 million in its first phase.

Three themes stood out for me:

• AI assistants are competing for our trust. The opportunity grows as we delegate more meaningful work, but so do expectations around reliability, privacy and control.
• AI economics are becoming a product decision. More usage can mean higher costs without higher revenue. Founders need to understand margins at the level of individual tasks and customers.
• Israeli innovation continues to reach beyond cyber. This week’s announcements included water conservation, marine intelligence and defence, alongside enterprise AI and security.

Globally, Meta launched Muse, DeepSeek released V4.1-Flash and Apple unveiled its first foldable iPhone. Mistral raised €3 billion, Google committed €13 billion to infrastructure in Finland, and Bending Spoons agreed to acquire Miro. Plenty to unpack in this week’s reading.

Shana tova u'metukah! 🍎🍯

Eze

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Recent articles

Weekly #FIRGUN Newsletter The Rosh Hashanah edition celebrates fresh funding and exits across Israeli tech, alongside the biggest developments in global AI. A moment for both remembrance and optimism, with a thought from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on making things better together. Read article

AI Assistants want to own the work we delegate From Instinct and Town to OpenClaw and NanoClaw, AI assistants want to manage our inboxes, coordinate our teams and complete work on our behalf. What makes an assistant worth trusting, and where can startups build a lasting advantage? Read article

Stripe’s $8 Billion OpenRouter Bet: Who Owns the Economics of AI? Read article

Quote of the week

“Hope is the belief that if we work hard enough together, we can make things better.”

​Rabbi Jonathan Sacks​

Chart of the week

The Market map for AI assistants by Lightspeed India (source)