Future Summit TLV: Israel’s Tech Conference Counteroffensive
Houthis launch rockets, Israelis launch tech summit; Twin AI breakthroughs usher Israel's "DeepSeek Moment"; "Vibe Coding" platform Base44 gets ridiculously popular.
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Future Summit TLV: Israel’s Tech Conference Counteroffensive
TL;DR: Israeli tech luminaries and Jewish VCs around the world have launched a conference to transform wartime isolation into the world's most exclusive business conference—where absence costs more than attendance.
While the Houthis launch rockets at Ben Gurion Airport, Israeli techies and their global supporters launched a tech summit. The Future Summit in Tel Aviv, conceived in Jewish VC WhatsApp groups just hours after October 7th, represents something more consequential than another startup conference: it's geopolitical judo, turning Israel's crisis into a showcase for its resilience. This non-profit initiative is managed by Noa Zilberman (who was 40 weeks pregnant when she took the job), and steered by an executive board including David Marcus, Michael Einsenberg, Seth Rosenberg, David Stark, Diklah Sheinfeld, and Raphael Ouzan.
The summit emerged directly in response to Web Summit's Paddy Cosgrave (Boooo!) who unleashed anti-Israel tweets slamming Israel's response in Gaza days after October 7th. Web Summit—one of the world's largest technology conferences held annually in Lisbon with over 70,000 attendees—had long courted Israeli startups to pay for pavilions and speaking slots. Cosgrave's comments triggered an immediate backlash, with tech leaders including Sequoia and Greylock pulling their sponsorships and logos. The protests snowballed, leading major companies like Intel, Google, Amazon and Siemens to cancel their participation, ultimately forcing Cosgrave to resign (though he has since returned as CEO and claims a 30% increase in revenue this year—without Israeli participation).
Rather than merely boycott, these tech leaders created a competitive alternative explicitly designed to make non-attendance professionally damaging. The calculus is ruthlessly pragmatic: most global business leaders fundamentally care more about their businesses than about geopolitics. They care deeply about missing crucial business opportunities. This becomes particularly compelling when considering Wiz—a 5-year old cybersecurity firm which achieved the largest private tech acquisition in Israeli history ($32B) despite 40% of its existence occurring during active warfare.
The narrative goes something like this: What makes the Israeli tech ecosystem unique isn't merely survival—it's structural. Most global startup communities are comprised of solo CEOs, while Israeli companies uniquely feature founder teams with complementary skills, built on relationships forged through military service and shared history. The teams exhibit a closeness very different than anything remotely like that anywhere else in the world, providing a foundation for remarkable business resilience.
The conference was limited to 150 of “the world's most senior technology leaders," organizers said, adding it was “the most senior delegation that has ever come to Israel.” We’ll have to take their word for it. The summit was purposefully kept way, way under the radar. The hottest ticket in town. FOMO for the Ages. (I attended the “Unplugged” session open to a broader audience.
Because even that event was off-record I can't give you direct quotes and who said them, so instead I'll give you direct quotes without telling you which Venture Capitalist said them.
"Israeli startups are building globally competitive companies while their people fight in Gaza and Lebanon against competitors in Silicon Valley concerned about what kind of milk they have for their coffee."
"Israel is the only place in the world where a missile hits the airport and everyone is trying to figure out how to get here, not leave."
"We're all fighting multiple wars, right? There's a physical war, and then there's the information war. And we felt that the best way to cure brainwashing is through reality. Most people don't care about Israel. They care about their businesses and their life and their family... And so we created a event where if you did not attend, it would be harmful to your business."
"Judaism has unbelievable ancient wisdom for dealing with the trials and tribulations of being human. Something like Shabbat is an unbelievable way to detox and manage the stress of everything else."
"If you look ten years from now at Israeli tech, today will feel like just the beginning—if you get that level of ambition coupled with that level of resilience, the sky is the limit."
Yet the summit also revealed the more sobering reality beneath the triumphalism: Israeli companies require better storytelling capabilities to compete globally, not an easy feat for any Israeli CEO, let alone ex-military founders facing potential customers and partners who might have very strong feelings against the Israeli military. Very few people in the tech industry talk about this openly, but you don't have to look far to hear stories of icy receptions, delayed deals, dead ends and unanswered emails Israeli startups face every day now around the world.
And while it’s true that there are a lot of VC funds being created here and being created abroad to invest in Israeli tech, it is also true that Israeli techies are increasingly incorporating their companies abroad—with some VCs demanding foreign incorporation as a precondition to investing. So, it’s complicated.
While crisis innovation makes for compelling conference narratives, the permanent state of emergency exacts a brutal toll, creating a paradox where startup resilience thrives precisely because of conditions nobody would willingly choose. The summit's existence—an improvised, heartfelt, ambitious, and smart response to wartime isolation—is both an impressive feat of entrepreneurial adaptation and a reminder of the extraordinary circumstances forcing this adaptation in the first place.
Israel's DeepSeek Moment
TL:DR: In just one week, two Israeli startups have blown open the race for AI dominance with a “do more with less” approach.
This week, two groundbreaking AI developments in Israel have challenge Silicon Valley's "spend more" approach to advancing artificial intelligence.
Engineers Jonathan Jacobi and Gal Niv, have launched Enigma Labs with their "Multiverse" platform—built for less than $1,500 on consumer hardware. This system enables multiple players to interact in an AI-generated world that changes in real-time based on collective actions, a feat that venture-backed startups with hundred-million-dollar valuations have failed to achieve. Their breakthrough came through clever architectural innovation: a "unified scene" approach that processes multiple viewpoints simultaneously and sparse temporal sampling techniques that dramatically reduce computational requirements while maintaining coherence and continuity.
Meanwhile, Israeli unicorn Lightricks has released LTX VIDEO-13B, an open-source video generation model that rivals OpenAI's SORA and Google's video generators at a fraction of the cost. Trained for tens of millions rather than billions of dollars, this 13-billion-parameter model renders high-quality videos 30 times faster than competitors while running on consumer-grade hardware. With strategic partnerships with Getty Images and Shutterstock, Lightricks has positioned itself to address copyright concerns while targeting the $600 billion video market.
These twin innovations represent Israel's "Deepseek moment"—echoing China's recent breakthrough when researchers demonstrated that lean, cleverly designed models could outperform Western giants with far fewer resources. Both Israeli companies have opted to open-source their technologies, directly challenging the closed ecosystems of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
The implications extend far beyond gaming—as simulation environments become increasingly critical for multiple industries. In robotics, Enigma Labs’ technology could enable teams of robots to coordinate in complex environments with a shared understanding of space and objects. For autonomous vehicles, it could facilitate better multi-vehicle coordination and traffic management by creating coherent shared world models at a fraction of the computational cost. In manufacturing, digital twins could become more dynamic and interactive, allowing multiple engineers to simultaneously modify simulations and immediately see each other's changes. Urban planning could benefit from real-time collaborative city modeling where planners can simultaneously modify and test infrastructure changes. Even healthcare might leverage this for multi-practitioner surgical planning or medical training simulations where multiple doctors interact with the same virtual patient.
Lightricks' video model could democratize professional-quality video production across advertising, education, and filmmaking industries. Together, they signal that AI advancement isn't exclusively the domain of well-funded tech giants.
The success of both companies demonstrates a distinctly Israeli approach to AI development—maximizing results with minimal resources through architectural creativity rather than computational brute force. As venture capital inevitably flows toward these innovations, they remind us that AI's next frontier belongs not to those with the deepest pockets, but to those who think most clearly about fundamental challenges while maximizing efficiency. In an industry obsessed with scale, Israel has shown that ingenuity can be the great equalizer.
It’s the End of the Coding World as we know it and he feels fine
TL:DR: Base44, an AI platform that turns conversations into working software without coding, is attracting thousands of daily users and challenging the traditional software industry.
Maor Shlomo spent a year in IDF reserves after October 7th. When he got back he built and launched Base44—a platform that lets you code by conversation (he built it entirely alone). Three weeks after launch, it's adding 5,000 users daily, generating 13,000 applications per day, and already profitable. No development team. No venture capital. Just one Israeli entrepreneur and AI.
Base44 embodies "Vibe Coding"—a development approach where conversations replace traditional programming. Users describe what they want ("create a task manager that syncs with Google Calendar"), and Base44 generates the complete application, including database structures, user authentication, and analytics. The platform handles everything from frontend design to backend infrastructure in minutes—work that typically requires developer teams and months of effort.
The process is radically intuitive. When testing Base44, a user requested a task manager with Google Calendar integration. When the button for this feature didn't appear in the initial version, they simply described the desired functionality in more detail. Base44 instantly added the feature, no technical knowledge required.
At Base44's hackathon this week, 2,000 participants created 356 applications in just 24 hours. The winning entry, AI Social Story, helps users create interactive narratives. Memory Bridge, which took second place, uses photos and memory games to help dementia patients recognize family members. Other standouts included Wikibedia (identifying and correcting bias in Wikipedia articles), Youth Trends (monitoring harmful social media trends affecting children), and BeActive (reducing children's screen time).
"I played with the platform for about 20 minutes and created a fully functional Iron Dome-style game," one user reported, referring to an 8-bit missile defense game built through simple prompts. Another participant built a comprehensive PTSD therapy application with AI-powered conversation features.
Real-world impact extends far beyond experiments. A restaurant manager with zero technical skills quit his job, built a restaurant management system, and secured contracts with major Israeli chains within weeks. A dentist created a pediatric dental monitoring app called "Smilo" in 24 hours instead of the months originally anticipated.
"I couldn't have built Base44 without AI," admits Shlomo, who previously founded Explorium (which raised over $100 million). The platform uses Claude from Anthropic as its "chief architect," with Google's Gemini handling complex contextual tasks. Features that once required hiring specialists and months of development now deploy in a week.
The simplicity is deceptive. Under the hood, Base44 provides what users call "batteries included"—integrated databases, user authentication, and an extensive library of pre-built components. When a user refines their requirements through conversation, the platform intelligently modifies the underlying code. Professional developers can access and modify this code if desired, though most users never need to see it.
Despite competitors like Cursor and Lovable raising tens of millions in venture funding, Shlomo has maintained independence. His total investment: 30,000 shekels (approximately $8,000), primarily for AI model fees. He credits the Israeli tech ecosystem as his "secret weapon," with users actively promoting the platform and sharing creations.
"I want to build a blue-and-white company that leads the category," Shlomo says. His LinkedIn crashed during his brother's bachelor party in Budapest—unable to handle the notification surge as Base44 went viral.
The implications extend far beyond a single product. As domain experts bypass technical intermediaries, the $4 trillion enterprise software market faces restructuring. While professional developers remain essential for complex systems, the vast middle market of business applications is rapidly shifting to platforms that empower subject-matter experts to create their own solutions.
"Systems like Base44 today will look ridiculous compared to where they'll be in two months," Shlomo notes. For businesses accustomed to choosing between expensive custom development or inflexible off-the-shelf solutions, this represents a fundamental shift in how software value is created, distributed, and captured.
Israel’s cyber-surveillance sector is collapsing
TL:DR: Israel's cyber-surveillance sector crumbles under export bans and legal actions against NSO's Pegasus and TeleMessage's flaws, forcing closures, offshore moves, and pivots to privacy tech.
Israel’s offensive cyber industry—once the “envy” of the world—is unraveling. At the center of this reckoning is NSO Group, whose Pegasus spyware triggered international outrage after being used to hack journalists, activists, diplomats, and politicians. This week a U.S. court ordered NSO to pay $170 million in damages to Meta over its alleged exploitation of WhatsApp vulnerabilities—a landmark ruling with implications for sovereign immunity and tech company liability.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post recently revealed that TeleMessage, an Israeli-founded company used by Trump-era officials for “secure” communications, had fundamental security flaws. Forensic analysis confirmed that despite marketing end-to-end encryption, the company retained access to user metadata and logs, exposing sensitive government communications to potential compromise. An Israeli software company specializing in secure enterprise messaging and mobile communications archiving, TeleMessage is headquartered in Petah Tikva, Israel, with its Americas headquarters in Massachusetts. In February 2024, TeleMessage was acquired by Smarsh, a U.S.-based digital communications compliance and intelligence firm.
Since the Biden administration’s 2021 decision to blacklist NSO Group for enabling “transnational repression,” a cascade of export restrictions, regulatory crackdowns, and investor retreat has decimated the sector. The Israeli Ministry of Defense now bars spyware exports to most non-Western democracies, gutting the client base for firms like Candiru, Intellexa, Quadream, and Nemesis. Several have shut down or restructured under new names. Others have offshored talent and intellectual property to friendlier jurisdictions such as the UAE, Singapore, or Cyprus.
From over 30 active offensive cyber companies in 2019, only a handful remain operational in Israel. NSO co-founder Shalev Hulio, who shares much of the blame for the implosion of the sector he helped create, has publicly warned of a “brain drain” as engineers exit for more legally viable ventures abroad. Former executives from Intellexa have already launched “lawful intercept” startups in the Gulf under new brands, leveraging looser export rules and sovereign funding.
The fallout is now geopolitical. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden recently called TeleMessage “a threat to U.S. national security,” while the European Data Protection Supervisor has renewed calls for a continent-wide ban on commercial spyware. Israel, long a pioneer in cyber offense, now faces a credibility crisis in the very markets it helped define. Some in the industry are pivoting. Former NSO and Quadream engineers are attempting to rebrand around privacy-centric solutions—moving from surveillance to secure comms, encryption infrastructure, and threat intelligence. But skepticism runs deep. The global market, once willing to tolerate Israeli firms’ “grey zone” activities, is now demanding transparency, compliance, and human rights due diligence as table stakes.
Unless Israel redefines its cyber model, the current trajectory leads not to reinvention—but obsolescence.
In other cyber news
Israeli Attorney, investor, and strategic advisor Yair Geva says the cyber security industry is shifting from aggressive acquisitions to strategic partnerships. This transition mirrors the current cautious investment climate, where companies prioritize collaboration over consolidation. The driving forces behind this change are advancements in AI and quantum computing, compelling firms to seek alliances that offer agility and shared expertise. Watch Geva's analysis – essential viewing for anyone in the cyber sector.
End of the Road?
General Motors' R&D center in Israel is undergoing significant restructuring with over 200 employees (approximately one-third of the center's workforce) being laid off. Industry sources quoted in TheMarker say the layoffs are a direct result of GM's December 2023 merger with autonomous vehicle company Cruise, which created redundancies among staff. The Israeli center will shift its focus more toward software development and less on visual data processing for autonomous vehicles. This marks the second round of layoffs at the center, following dozens of terminations about a year ago, and comes after the departure of Gil Golan, who founded the center and was later promoted to VP of R&D at GM.
Israeli-American entrepreneur Alex Mashinsky, founder of crypto lending platform Celsius Network, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for defrauding customers. Born in Ukraine, Mashinsky grew up in Israel before moving to the US in 1988. Celsius, once valued at $3 billion, allowed users to deposit cryptocurrency and earn interest rates up to 17%, while borrowing against their holdings. The company collapsed in June 2022 with a $1.2 billion deficit, leaving $4.7 billion in customer debt. Restructuring efforts are now underway, with over $3 billion being returned to affected users through a combination of cash and cryptocurrency repayments.
Notable
Israeli chip monitoring co proteanTecs raising $50m. The Haifa-based company has established significant partnerships with major chip manufacturers including Microsoft, Annapurna Labs (Amazon's processor division), TSMC, Intel, and Global Foundries. proteanTecs' technology enables tracking chip performance over time, monitoring specific problems, and implementing remote fixes, with a notable feature that can reduce AI server power consumption by up to 14%, potentially saving millions in processing costs for cloud providers.
VentureIsrael is raising a $25 million second fund targeting early-stage Israeli deep tech startups primed for acquisition. Co-founded by Rafael Gold and Gadi Isaev, the Tel Aviv-based firm focuses on acquisition-ready companies in cybersecurity and AI infrastructure sectors. With half the capital already secured from individual investors, the fund plans to invest in approximately 20 startups over an accelerated 1-2 year period, with a compressed 5-year fund lifespan. Portfolio companies include Remondo (satellite imagery), Nuvo (fetal monitoring), Heqa Security (quantum encryption), and CorrActions (cognitive monitoring).
That’s it for this week, drop me a line if you have anything you want to tell me amir@israeltechinsider.com