Rotem Shacham, PhD

Operations vs Strategy - which is more important? My answer has always been operations. Strategy is simply a smart operational process to figure out the right strategy. When we started the Israel Tech Mission nearly 1.5 years ago our focus was on action, operations and impact. And see impact to date: https://lnkd.in/e95Z92wZ

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Google just made history with a $32 BILLION acquisition of Wiz: the largest Israeli tech deal ever. When people think of Israeli tech, Waze often comes to mind. But that was 2013. Fast forward to today, and Israel isn’t just a Startup Nation, it’s a global innovation leader shaping entire industries. A few standout deals in recent years: $15.3B – Intel acquires Mobileye (2017) → Autonomous driving $6.9B – Nvidia acquires Mellanox (2020) → High-performance computing $4.4B – Unity acquires ironSource (2022) → App monetization And now, $32B for Wiz—a new record. The takeaway? Israeli startups don’t just scale, they define markets. From cybersecurity and AI to semiconductors and mobility, the country’s impact is undeniable. At Sienna Venture Capital, we’ve backed this ecosystem for over a decade because we know that no matter the cycle, Israeli tech delivers. Israeli tech continues to raise the bar, and the best is yet to come. #IsraeliTech #Innovation #VentureCapital #Google #Wiz #M&A

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Our posts about ivrit.ai are usually (surprise surprise) written in Hebrew. Today, we're making an exception to accomodate our global viewers as we share our experience with the ElevenLabs' scribe-v1 Speech-to-Text model. As most of you know, we maintain a Hebrew Transcription leaderboard on Huggingface (link in first comment). This was needed as fleurs and common-voice are low-quality datasets with regards to Hebrew. When ElevenLabs launched scribe_v1, we were eager to try it out. The initial results were a mixed bag: some benchmarks where scribe_v1 provides best-in-class results, others where it fumbles significantly. Our analysis mostly hints at issues with long-form transcriptions, where it simply "drops" large parts of the text after 1-2 minutes. We had a quick discussion about this with ElevenLabs support, but the end result is still subpar performance on Hebrew transcription, and we suspect this may be true for other low-resource languages. We think scribe_v1's technology is best-in-class, and are hoping to work together with the ElevenLabs team to fix this. So, if anyone at EL wants to chime in and make this happen (Mati Staniszewski Piotr Dabkowski :)), please reach out to us. We believe this might make scribe_v1 much better at not just Hebrew, so it might be worth your time. Our benchmarks are open, we're a non-profit, and in the last few weeks we open-sourced >5000 hours of speech with high-quality transcriptions. If anyone here has friends at EL and wants to help, please tag them! Kinneret Misgav, PhD Yoad Snapir Yanir Marmor

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𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐞 '𝐏𝐫𝐞' 𝐒𝐀𝐅𝐄 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐲...⁣ ⁣ Over the past few years, I’ve mentored and advised dozens of early-stage startups in Israel - many during one of the toughest periods to raise money and build new ventures.⁣ ⁣ One pattern I see far too often is 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐀𝐅𝐄 𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 - especially in the very first pre-seed/seed round — without fully understanding the impact of pre-money vs post-money caps.⁣ ⁣ At this early stage, founders hold their only real leverage: they control if and how the company starts. But they’re also at a serious disadvantage, facing investors with much more experience. That’s why you must bring in a sharp, founder-aligned lawyer — one who’s commercial, strategic, and transparent.⁣ ⁣ Unfortunately, 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭. And many lawyers simply pull out a 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭-𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐒𝐀𝐅𝐄 because that’s what became standard after YC’s 2018 update.⁣ ⁣ 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭-𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐒𝐀𝐅𝐄𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 — 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬.⁣ ⁣ Let’s break it down:⁣ You raise $1M at a $5M 𝐩𝐫𝐞-𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐩 → Investor gets 𝟏𝟕%.⁣ Same round, but with a $6M 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭-𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐩 → 𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝟏𝟕%.⁣ But now...⁣ If you later raise another $1.5M by extending this SAFE round:⁣ 𝐏𝐫𝐞-𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 SAFE total dilution = 𝟑𝟑%⁣ 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭-𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 SAFE total dilution = 𝟒𝟐% (!)⁣ ⁣ 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝟑𝟎% 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 — all because of the SAFE structure.⁣ ⁣ 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞:⁣ It’s not just the label "pre-money" or "post-money" that matters - 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐀𝐅𝐄 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩, and this is buried in the details of the agreement itself.⁣ ⁣ The two real differences are:⁣ In true post-money SAFEs, investors lock in a fixed ownership percentage and are 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐝 by additional SAFEs or grants until conversion.⁣ ⁣ In pre-money SAFEs, investors 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐝 by any new financing that happens before conversion — making it much more founder-friendly.⁣ ⁣ 𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐠𝐚𝐩 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐠𝐞.⁣ ⁣ Founders:⁣  Don’t just take the SAFE your lawyer drops on you.⁣  Make sure both cap types are on the table.⁣  Push for pre-money when you can.⁣  Post-money can snowball into painful dilution if you're not careful.⁣  And if investors are pushing to lock in a fixed % — consider a priced round instead.⁣ ⁣ 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲.⁣  𝐁𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫, 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 — 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐚𝐩 𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞.⁣ ⁣ #Startups #Founders #VentureCapital #StartupFunding #SAFEagreements #startupnation #Entrepreneurship #Fundraising #EarlyStageStartups #ycombinator #execumentoring

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Our team at Remagine Ventures is proud to share the latest Israeli Generative AI landscape. It showcases 342 Israeli startups across 29 categories, which have collectively raised over $20 billion in funding. For the first time, we've also included an acquisitions category. In the past year or so, 31 Israeli GenAI startups were acquired - 17 of them with disclosed terms, which amount to over $6.1 billion. To be included in the landscape, startups had to meet two core criteria: raise at least $1 million in funding and have a product or service where generative AI is central to the value proposition. Companies that have been acquired or that use generative AI only peripherally were excluded from the main list. ● 342 Israeli startups building generative AI products   ● 198 new companies since the May 2024 version ● Over half (104) of the new companies added have adopted Agentic capabilities   ● $20B+ in total funding raised by Israeli GenAI startups   ● 31 acquisitions over the past year, with $6.1B disclosed exit value  Link to the official release in CTech by Calcalist below. We've invested in 13 Israeli Generative AI startups, you can see the companies highlighted in yellow. Thank you Shanny Rofe and Kevin Baxpehler for all your work on this project.

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