Hi friends,

What would happen to your business if OpenAI and Anthropic switched off access to their models tomorrow? Your customers could still log in, but what could they actually do? I’ve been thinking about that question while mapping Israel’s AI infrastructure companies. Israeli founders are building chips, databases and cooling systems for customers around the world. Whether a researcher or a startup in Israel can get the computing power they need at home is a separate question, and one worth asking.

In Israel, as coalition talks continued, two cybersecurity teams had good reason to celebrate. Sentra raised $150 million and Brava emerged from stealth with $15 million. One story I’d give a little extra firgun to this week is TailorMed, which secured a majority investment from GrowthCurve. Its team helps patients find financial support for treatment. That’s the kind of company whose impact is easy to explain around the Shabbat table.

Here in London, Sequoia’s decision to close its office took me back to when the firm closed its office in Israel. Sequoia continued to invest there, but for a founder just starting out, there’s a difference between a fund being willing to invest and knowing who to call for that first meeting. I wrote about what Europe can learn from the Israeli experience.

Let’s dive in!
Eze

Recent articles

Weekly #FIRGUN Newsletter This week’s edition celebrates the teams behind Sentra, Brava and TailorMed, and looks at Perion’s $420 million deal with Affle. There’s also the latest on Israel’s coalition talks and the stories that caught my eye across the wider tech world. Read article

Israel’s AI infrastructure stack Follow an AI request from the chip that processes it to the database that gives it context, and a different set of Israeli companies comes into view. Grove Ventures and Startup Nation Central identified more than 70 companies in the data-centre ecosystem alone, 65% of them founded since 2020. I mapped where Israeli startups fit across the stack and why access to compute matters for the next generation of founders. Read article

Sequoia’s London exit: What Europe can learn from Israel When Sequoia closed its Israel office, its ties to Israeli founders outlasted the address. One reason was the local network it had already built, including investors like Gili Raanan, who went on to found Cyberstarts. With Sequoia also winding down its European scout programme, the question I’m watching is who gets the call when a promising founder in London is still too early for a partner meeting. Read article

Requests for startups - winter 2027 Two ideas caught my eye in the Winter 2027 Requests for Startups: getting AI to work inside secure facilities that have to stay offline, and tackling the bottlenecks that delay data-centre construction. If you’re exploring either, I’d start by finding the person who dealt with that problem last week and asking how they solved it. Read article

Quote of the week

Chart of the week

The Israeli AI infra stack (source)

Thanks for reading. If someone came to mind while you were reading this, send them the piece. And if a founder you know had a good week, take a moment to give them a little firgun.

Eze Vidra