The top index isn't in the USA?

Shai Goldman
January 13, 2026

Happy Tuesday Brex Community,

Excited to be back after two weeks off and bullish for 2026!

I just returned from a trip to Israel and had some interesting meetings with local VCs and Founders.

One of the things the stood out to me while traveling the country was the amount of cranes in the skylines, it was similar to what you see in Miami, which is known as a town that builds. Both Tel Aviv and Miami share this in common, in addition to great beaches, food and nightlife. The vibes were strong.

On the startup side of things, one of the events I attended was the opening bell of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The index of the top 125 companies at the exchange is TA-125 Index, which included many local technology companies. That index has outperformed NASDAQ, S&P 500 and DOW over the past two years!

2025 was a banner year for the local tech scene with two major events: 1) Google made their largest acquisition ever, acquiring Wiz, a local Israeli cybersecurity startup, for $32B! 2) At the end of 2025, Nvidia announced it was buying land in Israel and investing $1.5B to build AI focused server farms there

In terms of meeting with local Founders and VCs, it was a very optimistic tone, primarily due to a lot of tailwinds for sectors that Israel startups have a long track record in, specifically: cybersecurity, defense, biotech and AI. While there is a good amount of local capital there, the local startup scene still needs to attract external capital and buyers, both of which are actively traveling to Israel to do deals.

If you are in tech & haven’t been to Israel yet, it’s worth a trip to explore what is happening on the ground.

Have a great week,

Shai Goldman

Jan 13 - SF - Healthcare focused coffee meet up with Brex, Constellation & Refract - Apply Here

Jan 15 - SF - MongoDB AI event - Apply Here

Jan 29 - NYC - Brex Supper Club with The Collective - Apply Here

Feb 11 - NYC - Brex Supper Club with Canvas Prime - Fintech Focus - Apply Here

Meet Shahar Man and Yossi Pik of Backslash is the vibe coding security company. The platform is purpose-built to empower organizations to accelerate their use of AI-native software development and vibe coding – safely and securely.

Problem: Traditional Application Security (AppSec) tools were built for a world of manual coding and are now failing to keep up with the speed of AI-native development. As developers adopt AI agents (like Cursor) and "Vibe Coding" workflows, they are inadvertently introducing "AI-generated technical debt"—including insecure code, exposed secrets, and the use of unvetted third-party AI connectors (MCP servers)—which creates a massive, unmanageable volume of security alerts.

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Why it Matters: It enables engineering teams to embrace the massive productivity gains of AI and "Vibe Coding" without sacrificing security. By shifting from "detecting" vulnerabilities to "preventing" them through AI governance, Backslash reduces security alert noise by up to 90%, preventing developer burnout and ensuring that the move toward automated software creation doesn't result in a compromised or unfixable codebase.

— (@)

Brex is the intelligent finance platform built for speed and control. Combining corporate cards, banking, treasury, expense management, bill pay, travel, and accounting, Brex helps companies spend smarter and move faster in 120 countries. By integrating AI across every workflow, Brex enables founders and finance teams to eliminate manual work, do more with less, and accelerate impact. More than 35,000 companies from startups to enterprises run on Brex, including ServiceTitan, Robinhood, DoorDash, Cursor, and Sonos