Enterprise Weekly #409: Software Spend Growth, Enterprise Budget Shifts & More
This week, Gartner released its annual IT spend forecast which predicted global IT spend will reach $4.5T in 2023 (up 2.4% from 2022). While total IT spend contracted 0.2% last year, software has consistently led the pack of top-growth sectors with 7.1% growth in 2022 and a projected 9.3% growth and $856B of spend this year.
While software spend looks to remain relatively steady in the face of poor market conditions, it will be interesting to see where software budgets shift. While not surprising, we expect technologies that can prove clear value and ROI outcomes in the enterprise - be it protecting the business (cybersecurity) or driving profit (AI and cloud) - to be the most resilient in making it into the budget.
Decision makers discussed similar sentiments at Davos’ World Economic Forum this week (shoutout to speaker April Koh, CEO and co-founder of Work-Bench portfolio company Spring Health). The dialogue centered around two key themes: while enterprises need to invest in tech that drives up efficiency and drives down cost (as reflected in Gartner’s data above), startups need to focus on building healthy fundamentals and sustainable roads to profitability.
As said by Alexander Rinke, Co-CEO of one of NYC’s top funded software startups, Celonis: “If you start out as a young company and then people throw $100M at you, you probably don’t build the right fundamentals because you don’t have to. I think that this is a much healthier period to build a business than two years ago because in reality, capital can’t be free forever.”
At Work-Bench, we continue to support enterprise startup fundamentals with the creation of our Enterprise Playbook Library. This week, we released a new playbook on How to Make Your First Sales Hire, outlining the end-to-end process of when to hire a BDR/SDR, how to construct a compensation plan, conduct interviews, close candidates, and more.
🤝 Attend more events:
January 24th: Sales Masterclass: Leveling Up Discovery & Demo Calls (virtual)
February 15th: New to NYC Enterprise Happy Hour (in-person)
February 16th: Keys to Early-Stage Fundraising Success (in-person)
📚 Read more news:
Insider: Wall Street’s Crystal Ball Is Broken
TechCrunch: Women-Founded Startups Raised 1.9% Of All VC Funds in 2022, a Drop From 2021
➡️ Check out how stats compare to women-founded enterprise startups in our 2022 #Womenterprise Report
TechCrunch: Black Founders Still Raised Just 1% Of All VC Funds in 2022
Company: ApertureData
Role: Product Marketing Manager
Technology: Visual Data Management & Analytics
Funding: $3M from Root Ventures, Work-Bench, 2048 VC, Graph Ventures, Alumni Ventures Group, Magic Fund
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Scrintal raises $1M led by Spintop Ventures
Collaboration & Productivity • Seed • Stockholm, Sweden
Founders: Ece Kural (CEO), Furkan Bayraktar (CTO), Arda Ertem (CCO)
Inclusio raises $2M led by Elkstone Partners, Atlantic Bridge, and Oyster Capital
HR Tech • Seed • Dublin, Ireland
Aikido Security raises $2.1M led by Syndicate One and Others
Risk / Security • Pre-Seed • Ghent, Belgium
accSenSe raises $5M led by Joule Ventures
Risk / Security • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
awork raises $5.1M led by Swiss Post Ventures and Others
HR Tech • Series A • Hamburg, Germany
Akia raises $6M led by Altos Ventures
Future of Work • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Hypori raises $10.5M led by Hale Capital Partners
Risk / Security • Series B • Reston, VA
Cumul.io raises $10.8M led by Hi Inov-Dentressangle
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Leuven, Belgium
Amberflo raises $15M led by Norwest Venture Partners
Future of Work • Series A • Santa Clara, CA
CloseFactor raises $15.2M led by Vertex Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Series A • Palo Alto, CA
ContractSafe raises $27.5M led by Five Elms Capital
Future of Work • Private Equity • Los Angeles, CA
Cloudian raises $60M led by Digital Alpha, Intel Capital and Others
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • San Mateo, CA
Aptum acquires CloudOps for an Undisclosed Amount
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Acquisition • Montreal, Canada
Bitwarden acquires Passwordless.dev for an Undisclosed Amount
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Sweden, SC
Forter acquires Immue for an Undisclosed Amount
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Tel Aviv, Israel