Andreessen Horowitz backs Israeli AI startup ARGU in $2 million pre-Seed round
Vision AI firm turns real-time video feeds into interactive agents using natural language.
An Israeli startup is attracting attention from one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful venture firms. ARGU, a young artificial intelligence company based in Qiryat Shmona, has raised $2 million in pre-Seed funding driven by Andreessen Horowitz’s Speedrun accelerator.
Full list of Israeli high-tech funding rounds in 2025
Founded in 2024 by brothers Ido Deutsch and Shani Daniel, together with Lior Strugach, a veteran of an elite IDF technology unit, ARGU has developed a Vision AI system that allows users to analyze live video feeds using natural language, no model training required. The company calls its breakthrough “Vision Agents,” AI-powered entities that can understand and respond to human instructions in real time, effectively turning any surveillance or operational camera network into an interactive intelligence system.
Today, ARGU’s technology is already in use across four continents, serving governments, intelligence agencies, and critical infrastructure operators. Its customers span homeland security, civilian safety, and large-scale enterprise analytics, areas where real-time video understanding can dramatically alter how organizations detect, respond to, and prevent events.
Deutsch, ARGU’s CEO, said the company was created to close a gap that even the world’s most advanced AI models have yet to bridge.
“Today, you can build apps and websites at the click of a button, but in the world of real-time video, we’re still stuck with outdated models limited to their training data,” he said. “ARGU bridges this gap by bringing the power and simplicity of AI agents directly to enterprise cameras, giving organizations a fully agentic experience to improve security, safety, and operational workflows.”
The company’s acceptance into a16z’s Speedrun accelerator, a program known for its extremely selective admission rate, marks a significant validation for the Israeli startup. According to ARGU, Andreessen Horowitz has already indicated plans to participate in the company’s next funding round.
Other participants in the round include Port of Miami, Mekorot (Israel’s national water company), and several private investors and angels.
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Deutsch emphasized that while the new funding will accelerate ARGU’s expansion in the U.S. market, the company’s core development will remain in Israel. “Patriotism is at the heart of everything we do,” he said.
ARGU’s founders bring a proven track record to their new venture. The trio previously built and sold a video analytics company in 2020, experience that played a decisive role in a16z’s backing.
Founded only last year, ARGU aims to shorten AI deployment timelines from months to minutes, eliminating the need for training data, model tuning, or code writing. Through conversational interaction, organizations can build agents that watch, interpret, and respond to any event in real time.
