Kris Vulgan

Building for the nation’s most critical technologies means rethinking how we approach human repair - from the battlefield to the lab bench. Harpoon is proud to back Somite AI in their $47M Series A, led by Khosla Ventures. Somite is developing the AI blueprints for functional human cells - combining cell therapy, large-scale simulation, and a novel foundation model for biology. Their platform represents a bold leap forward in programmable cell manufacturing, with the potential to unlock next-generation treatments for organ failure, degenerative disease, and more. We’re excited to support Micha Y. Breakstone 🇮🇱🎗️ and the Somite team as they push the frontier of regenerative medicine and build the infrastructure for truly scalable cell replacement therapies.

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The hardest thing in FinTech? Earning trust. Especially in InsurTech, where skepticism runs deep and stakes are high. Faye is breaking through — building a travel brand that’s not only trusted, but loved. This episode is about how they’re doing it. Elad Schaffer, Omry Ben David

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YL Ventures is thrilled to share that Hush Security has launched from stealth with an $11M #seed round from YL Ventures and Battery Ventures! Congratulations to cofounders Micha Rave, Shmulik Ladkani, Alon Horowitz and Chen Nisnkorn - a seasoned team whose track record includes building Meta Networks (acquired by Proofpoint). Machine identities have quietly become the backbone of modern infrastructure, yet remain one of the least governed, least secured parts of the #enterprise. Hush Security is changing that, not by incrementally improving the old vault model, but by introducing an entirely new paradigm: #secretless, policy-based access that scales at the speed of today’s environments. With #Fortune500 enterprises already adopting the platform, Hush Security is positioned to define the future of machine identity #security. This is just the beginning, and we look forward to seeing the impact they will make across the industry! Read more here: https://lnkd.in/g97JvQqZ

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Super Excited to share that Vertex Ventures Israel  is joining Apono’s $34M Series B. On a personal note (and with real excitement 😄), it’s rare to see an access-management platform deliver such high value  yet such low friction at scale. From the beginning, Apono felt different and the signals were clear: High usage. Strong customer pull. A deeply granular  Zero Standing Privilege (ZSP) approach that solves real access challenges in daily enterprise workflows. The category is shifting fast toward dynamic, context-aware access, especially as AI agents become part of every environment. Apono is exactly where identity security is heading. Zero Standing Privilege is becoming foundational. Proud to partner with Rom Carmel, Ofir Stein, and the entire Apono team and excited for what’s ahead . 💫

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AI ships product daily, while GTM tools still crawl. Thrilled to partner with Zach Vidibor, Julian Tempelsman, and the Octave team as they lay the foundations of the Modern GTM stack. AI is transforming the way we work, but the change is not happening all at once, so we can't reap the full benefits of it end-to-end. Octave ensures that GTM teams can keep up with the cadence of the AI-native organization. What do I mean by this? 1/ AI pushes product releases daily. Messaging must iterate at the same cadence. 2/ Competition resets overnight. Early traction fades fast unless users are locked in by retention value that others can't replicate. 3/ Systems of record log data but can’t reason. They lack the full context a true engine requires. 4/ AI is collapsing org walls. Product ↔ engineering, sales ↔ marketing. Our tools must mirror this reality. Octave bundles every GTM signal, reasons across it, and serves the right story to the right buyer exactly when it matters. LFG!!

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📣 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲. In her latest Forbes article, Arieli Group Managing Partner Lisya Bahar Manoah outlines how rising defense spending, post-quantum urgency, and the maturation of deep tech are reshaping capital allocation and national priorities. Post-quantum security, robotics, and prevention-first cybersecurity architectures are infrastructure decisions. Deep tech and defense are converging into scalable commercial markets, where technical depth, barriers to entry, and operational validation matter more than narratives. At Arieli Group, we focus on execution at this intersection, supporting technologies that translate strategic necessity into durable, long-term value. Read the full article in Forbes:  https://lnkd.in/dUuHUE83 #ArieliGroup #DeepTech #DefenseInnovation #Cybersecurity #StrategicCapital #SovereignTech 

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𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘄𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 "𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺" 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱. When we first met the team at hosted·ai, one stat blew us away: AI workloads often consume only 40% of the GPU capacity they are paying for. In the Gold Rush of 2026, everyone is selling shovels. But hosted.ai is building the automated machinery that makes those shovels work 24/7. They announced their Series A to scale their mission of making GPU infrastructure simple, affordable, and—most importantly—profitable for providers outside the "Big Three" hyperscalers. It’s rare to find a team with this much "scar tissue" in infrastructure (25+ years of experience) tackling the most pressing bottleneck in tech today. Onward and upward! 📈 #Startups #Founders #AI #GPUaaS #InvestmentNews z21 Ventures Raj Shekhar Singh Jyotika Gupta Sudarshan Ravi Udit Batish Carl Fritjofsson

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With RL techniques like GRPO, it’s become easy to fine-tune small models to outperform foundation models on vertical tasks. We’re open sourcing Osmosis-Apply-1.7B: a small model that merges code (similar to Cursor’s instant apply) better than foundation models. Links in comments! Using foundation models for high specificity, low complexity tasks like code merging can be overkill - instead, it’s better to use a specialized model instead for higher performance and latency. We fine-tuned the model on 100K real-world code commits where the model needs to merge a code edit snippet into an original code snippet. On the test dataset (subset of CommitPackFT), foundation model performance ranged between 0.77-0.93 reward score. In comparison, Osmosis-Apply-1.7B achieved a 0.98 reward score - while also being 3X-5X more affordable than the next cheaper model AND ~10X faster! Why this matters: the best AI agents use multiple models to ensure task specialization and reliability at scale - on top of cost and latency benefits as well. Links to the model and full write-up (with reward function, hyperparameters, etc.) are in the comments - reach out if you’re interested in using reinforcement learning!

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In a world where AI will impact nearly every industry, Israeli startups continue to lead with speed, differentiation, and deep tech. I shared my thoughts with CTech by Calcalist on how founders can stay ahead, what AI really means for VC, and why capital efficiency matters more than ever. Link in the 1st comment. iAngels

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#AmTech Weekly Roundup: Apex - Spacecraft Manufacturing raised $200 million in Series C funding from Point72 Ventures, 8VC, Andreessen Horowitz, and Washington Harbour Partners LP. Apex builds satellite buses (core body with power, propulsion, and communications) that customers can customize cheaper and quicker than building bespoke buses for each mission.   Ian Cinnamon, Maximilian Benassi    Rainmaker Technology Corporation raised a $25 million Series A from Lowercarbon Capital, 1517 Fund, Long Journey, Garry Tan, and Naval Ravikant. Rainmaker uses drones for cloud-seeding. In addition to agriculture, they are thinking of it as water infrastructure: why build more pipes and canals when the clouds can do the heavy lifting?  Augustus Doricko    Jericho Security raised a $15 million Series A from Era, Lux Capital, and Gaingels. Jericho uses generative AI help corporations run cybersecurity trainings and simulations against increasingly sophisticated AI phishing attacks and social engineering.   Sage Wohns #VC #NationalInterest #USA #Startups

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