Enterprise Weekly #408: Behind FAA's Downfall, NYC Enterprise Happy Hour, and More
It’s Friday the 13th 👻 and something spooky occurred at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) this week.
On Wednesday, the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions (Notam) pilot-alert system suffered an outage, reportedly caused by a “damaged database file” grounding thousands of flights and disrupting millions of passengers' travel. While the incident doesn’t appear to be a cyber attack, it highlights the system’s reliance on aging technology, a common criticism across government systems.
We’ve heard this story many times before—modernization efforts are pushed aside due to high costs and long implementation cycles. Oftentimes the consequences are catastrophic.
While it's unknown if the system’s upcoming upgrades will include modern cloud technologies, experts argue the transition would help the system connect with real-time data sources—a critical factor for airline technology. In return, the FAA could see improvements in querying speed along with more reliable automations and integrations that are less dependent on legacy programs.
While the public is looking at the FAA outage in terms of its inconvenience, when an enterprise suffers an outage (even lasting only minutes) it can result in millions of dollars in damages and long-lasting ripple effects. That’s why we’re seeing a renewed focus in the enterprise to implement robust site reliability engineering practices with companies like FireHydrant (a Work-Bench portfolio company).
🗓️ Attend more events:
January 18th: Making the Shift to Usage-Based Pricing (virtual)
January 25th: London Enterprise Tech Meetup (in-person)
February 15th: New to NYC Enterprise Happy Hour (in-person)
📚 Read more news:
TechCrunch: Carta, Previously Sued for Gender Discrimination, Is Now Suing Its Former CTO
The Information: Okta CTO Departs Amid Sales Shakeup
WSJ: Cloudflare Takes Aim at a Top Security Threat: Your Inbox
Company: Leapfin
Role: Director of Solution Success
Technology: Financial Data Management
Funding: $20M from Bowery Capital, Crosslink Capital, Uncorrelated, Work-Bench
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Seek raises $7.5M led by Conviction Partners, Battery Ventures and Others
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • New York, NY
Founders: Sarah Nagy (CEO), Sarah Smith (CRO) David Lee (Head of Engineering), Raz Besaleli (Head of AI)
Canary raises $2.9M led by Capital One Ventures
Future of Work • Seed • New York, NY
Attention raises $3.1M led by Eniac Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Seed • New York, NY
Blaze raises $3.5M led by Flybridge Capital and MaC Venture Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Pre-Seed • Los Angeles, CA
Live Data Technologies raises $5M led by Entrada Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A• Santa Barbara, CA
Howdy raises $5M led by Obvious Ventures
Future of Work • Series A-2 • Austin, TX
XetHub raises $7.5M led by Madrona
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Seattle, WA
Personal.ai raises $7.8M led by Supernode Global and Others
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Diego, CA
Coho AI raises $8.5M led by Eight Roads and TechAviv
Future of Work • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
Inbenta raises $40M led by Tritium partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Private Equity • Dallas, TX
Peppy raises $45M led by AlbionVC
HR Tech • Series B • London, UK
Hack The Box raises $55M led by Carlyle
Risk / Security • Series B • Folkestone, UK
DeepL raises >$100M led by IVP
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • Cologne, Germany
Chronosphere raises $115M led by GV and Geodesic Capital
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series C • New York, NY
OutSystems raises $228M led by KKR
Collaboration / Productivity • Series E • Boston, MA
HPE acquires Pachyderm for an Undisclosed Amount
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Acquisition • San Francisco, CA