Enterprise Weekly #415: NYC's 🔥 Week, Salesforce Stock Soars, Commercializing ChatGPT, and More
It’s been a 🔥 week for NYC enterprise startups, signaling that it’s not all doom and gloom in 2023.
First, NYC-based cloud security company Wiz, announced it raised a $300M Series D at a $10B valuation, which is a step up from their $6B valuation at their Series C.
Second, congrats to our friends at NS1 as IBM announced that they’ll acquire the DNS traffic steering provider in Q2. With the acquisition, NS1 will complement IBM with added capabilities to its network automation portfolio to help better manage IBM’s hybrid cloud environments.
Prior to this week, both companies were already ranked on our NYC Enterprise Tech Index.
This is a breath of fresh air from last year. According to data from our own State of Enterprise Tech in NYC Report, in 2022 NYC enterprise startups saw no meaningful exits across M&A and IPOs. Seed rounds ranked as the most resilient stage of investing, while mega rounds essentially disappeared. NS1’s acquisition breaks this exit dry spell and Wiz’s massive funding round could be a sign that big fundraises are still happening as VCs flock to quality and place their bets on safer, late-stage companies.
In public markets, Salesforce beat fourth-quarter earnings forecasts, reporting $8.38B (+14% YoY), and issued upbeat guidance for the full year. As a result, the stock ripped nearly 12% on Thursday. This comes after a turbulent few months that included the resignation of co-CEO Bret Taylor, layoffs affecting roughly 8,000 employees, and rising pressure from activist investors, including Elliott Management. Along with that, Salesforce has “fully disbanded its M&A committee”, citing a new focus on growing the company’s existing business, which could greatly impact exit options for startups.
On the Generative AI front, OpenAI announced that third-party developers could now integrate ChatGPT and Whisper models directly into their applications via API, while achieving 90% cost reduction for ChatGPT. By decreasing the cost of inference, OpenAI has taken a huge step forward in productizing LLMs into real-life use cases, and shared examples from enterprise customers such as Snap, Quizlet, and Instacart.
Lastly, if you're an enterprise startup building out your early Marketing strategy, check out our latest Enterprise Playbook on How to Build a Scalable Customer Acquisition System. Head of Marketing at Mutiny, Ryan Narod, walks through how to define your target persona/ICP, breakdown weekly targets, activate channels, and measure success that aligns with revenue goals.
🍺 Join more events:
March 15: NY Enterprise Tech Meetup with a VC Panel on Today's Enterprise Seed Landscape
📚 Read more news:
Crain’s New York: Cloud Security Startup Wiz Raises $300M, The Largest New York Megaround in Months
TechCrunch: Of Course the Adobe-Figma Deal is Anti-Competitive
Pitchbook: 2022 Internet of Things Report
- & on a decade of vertical SaaS
- & on efficient LLMs
Company: Arthur
Role: Head of Product
Technology: AI Performance
Funding: $60.3M from Work-Bench, Index Ventures, Acrew Capital, Greycroft, Plexo Capital, and more
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Trackd raises $3.4M led by Flybridge
Risk / Security • Seed • Reston, VA
Founder: Mike Starr (CEO)
HR Signal raises $1.6M led by Gammite Ventures and Aaron Grossman
HR Tech • Pre-Seed • Cleveland, OH
Cordless raises $2.3M led by Fly Ventures
Future of Work • Seed • London, UK
Archetype raises $3.1M led by MaC Venture Capital
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • New York, NY
Trackd raises $3.4M led by Flybridge
Risk / Security • Seed • Reston, VA
Cycle raises $6M led by Boldstart Ventures, BoxGroup and Others
Collaboration / Productivity • Seed • Paris, France
Savant Labs raises $11M led by Cota Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Gable raises $12M led by SemperVirens and Foundation Capital
HR Tech • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Qwak raises $12M led by Bessemer Venture Partners
HR Tech • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Bonusly raises $18.9M led by Ankona Capital
HR Tech • Series B • Boulder, CO
CAST AI raises $20.1M led by Undisclosed Investors
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Venture • Miami, F
Quantifind raises $23M led by DNS Capital
Risk / Security • Venture • Palo Alto, CA
Attio raises $23.5M led by Redpoint
Sales / Marketing • Series A • London, UT
SpotDraft raises $26M led by Premji Invest
Collaboration / Productivity • Series A • New York, NY
Typeface raises $65M led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures
Collaboration / Productivity • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Temporal raises $75M led by Sequoia and Greenoaks
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series B • Bellevue, WA
Wunderkind raises $76M led by Neuberger Berman
Sales / Marketing • Series C • Indianapolis, IN
Wiz raises $300M led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Greenoaks Capital Partner
Risk / Security • Series D • New York, NY
Cisco acquires Valtix for an Undisclosed Amount
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Santa Clara, CA
IBM acquires NS1 for an Undisclosed Amount
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Acquisition • New York, NY