Enterprise Weekly #399: Generative AI Didn't Make This News Up, and More
You know a space is hype-y when a market map drops.
AI is all the rage this week as Stability AI, the parent company of Stable Diffusion, a platform that generates images from text, raised a $100M Seed round at a $1B valuation. With over 10 million total users, Stability AI differentiates itself with an open-source model that uses a generative AI technique called diffusion, which uses AI to ‘destroy an image’ and build new images.
With big valuations and fad products having come crashing down these last few months, there’s a lot of skepticism around the functionality and buying patterns of generative AI as well the potential threats if it lands in the hands of nefarious actors. Moving forward, it will be interesting to see how startups can fine tune large language models to build solutions focused on business applications within the enterprise.
Also seeing growth is IT spend. Gartner predicts global IT spending will reach $4.6T in 2023 (a 5.1% increase from 2022). Software is the largest growing category and is predicted to grow 11.3%. This matches what we’re hearing from our corporate network as they continue to shift to cloud options in the face of increased pressure to drive more efficiency during the market downturn.
Lastly, you know we're all about building a community of awesome people in enterprise tech. So come party with us at our last in-person NY Enterprise Tech Meetup of the year on Nov 8th! We’ll have drinks, snacks, and a tactical talk led by Mark Kosoglow, CRO at Catalyst and former SVP of Global Sales at Outreach, on “The Sales Playbook That Turbocharged Outreach from $0 to $200M.”
💻 Join more events:
October 26th: Can We Shift Left With Third-Party Risk Management? with VISO Trust (virtual)
November 9th: “Ask An Enterprise VC Anything” Session with Work-Bench (virtual)
📚 Read more news:
AngelList: The State of U.S. Early-Stage Venture & Startups: 3Q22
The Information: Databricks Is Trimming Its Valuation While Other Startups Are Slashing Theirs
WSJ: Microsoft Lays Off Employees After Slowdown in Earnings Growth
🍂 Have a great weekend! And for all our Taylor Swift fans:
📚 More to follow:
Company: RippleMatch
Role: Senior Python Engineer
Technology: Enterprise Recruiting Software
Funding: $79.2M from Work-Bench, Invus Opportunities, G20, Accomplice, Bullpen Capital, AlleyCorp, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and others
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Stylo raises $3M led by Matchstick Ventures
Future of Work • Seed • Boulder, CO
Founders: Austin Emser (CEO), Josh Horowitz (CTO)
Versori raises $500K led by Y-Combinator
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Manchester, UK
Mason raises $1.7M led by Creandum
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Pre-Seed • Stockholm, Sweden
Netmaker raises $2.3M led by Lytical Ventures, Uncorrelated Ventures and SaxeCap
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • Asheville, NC
Raito raises $3.9M led by Dawn Capital and Crane Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Brussels, Belgium
Tensorleap raises $5.2M led by Angular Ventures, Sozo Ventures and Industry Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
Kubiya raises $6M led by Hyperwise Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • Palo Alto, CA
Relevize raises $6M led by Insight Partners
Sales / Marketing • Seed • Boston, MA
OutThink raises $10M led by AlbionVC
Risk / Security • Seed • London, UK
Voilà! raises $10M led by Walter Ventures, Investissement Québec, and Desjardins Capital
HR Tech • Series A • Longueuil, Canada
Bolster raises $15M led by Cervin, Liberty Global Ventures, and Cheyenne Ventures
Risk / Security • Venture • Los Altos, CA
Drivetrain raises $15M led by Elevation Capital, Jungle Ventures and Venture Highway
Future of Work • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Tellius raises $16M led by Baird Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • Reston, VA
Banyan raises $28M led by Fin Capital
Future of Work • Series A • New York, NY
RisingWave Labs raises $36M led Yunqi Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Enable raises $94M led by Insight Partners
Future of Work • Series C • San Francisco, CA
Stability AI raises $101M led by Coatue and Lightspeed Venture Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Jasper raises $125M led by Insight Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Austin, TX