Enterprise Weekly #428: Fortune 500s, Where AI Is Heading, and More
After Canadian wildfires transformed NYC’s skyline into a Mars look alike this week, we’re excited to see clearer skies in NYC today 🙏
Meanwhile, the latest Fortune 500 list was published this week with 65 NYC based companies. Here at Work-Bench, we are laser focused on investing and supporting early-stage enterprise startups on all things GTM. To do that, we leverage the extensive Fortune 500 network in our own backyard to identify their top pain points, then invest in startups building the right solutions.
It’s no secret that AI has been top of mind for corporates across the board. As we discussed at our latest NY Enterprise Tech Meetup on “LLMs in the Enterprise”, the opportunity expands far beyond ChatGPT and conversational AI to use cases like extracting information out of long and complex documents, summarizing call transcripts and news, or even generating text outputs.
But as Danny put it, “there's an AI gray zone emerging in application software companies founded ~3-5 years ago. Unlike incumbents, many don't have the distribution moat to layer on AI at scale, nor are they AI native.”
While it feels like much of the low-hanging fruit use cases have already been built, we’re excited to see how these companies adjust to the new playing field, especially given where venture dollars have already been allocated:
Additionally, we already know that risk and regulation weigh heavily on enterprise minds as they assess startups to fold into their tech stack. To that end, enterprises are gearing up for this implementation with the rise of the Chief AI Officer and bumping up initiatives to better structure and govern data.
🍻 Join more events:
June 22nd: NYC Enterprise Game Night: Settlers of Catan
All Summer Long: Infrasummer
📚 Read more news:
Forbes: How Base10 Investor Ade Ajao Embraced Outsider Status To Deliver Outsized Returns
Forbes: The AI Founder Taking Credit For Stable Diffusion’s Success Has A History Of Exaggeration
TechCrunch: Sorry, But Apple’s Vision Pro Isn’t For Consumers
TechBrew: Why the NYSE Built a Virtual Replica Of Its Trading Floor for IPO Events
WSJ: Should Software Companies Be Held Liable for Security Flaws?
WSJ: Sequoia to Separate China Business as Political Tensions Rise, read Sequoia’s full statement here
WSJ: Google DeepMind Unveils AI System to Discover Faster Algorithms
📚 Read more (th)reads:
Company: FireHydrant
Role: Staff Product Manager
Technology: Site Reliability & Incident Management Platform
Funding: $32.5M from Work-Bench, Menlo Ventures, Harmony Partners, Salesforce Ventures
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Dock raises $3.5M led by Craft Ventures
Future of Work • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Founders: Alex Kracov (CEO), Victor Kmita (CTO)
Monster API raises $1.1M led by Carya Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Pre-Seed • Palo Alto, CA
Outmin raises $1.6M led by Fuel Ventures
Future of Work • Seed • Dublin, Ireland
Keep Aware raises $2.4M led by LiveOak Venture Partners
Risk / Security • Seed • Austin, TX
Elba raises $2.6M led by XAnge
Risk / Security • Seed • Paris, France
Minoa raises $2.7M led by 468 Capital
Sales / Marketing • Pre-Seed • San Francisco, CA
Togai raises $3.1M led by Together Fund
Future of Work • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Escape raises $3.9M led by Iris
Risk / Security • Seed • Paris, France
Humanz raises $5M led by Yuval Tal
Sales / Marketing • Series A • Tel Aviv, Israel
LlamaIndex raises $8.5M led by Greylock
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Payrails raises $14.4M led by EQT Ventures
Future of Work • Seed • Berlin, Germany
Blumira raises $15M led by Ten Eleven Ventures
Risk / Security • Series B • Ann Arbor, MI
Contextual AI raises $20M led by Bain Capital Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Menlo Park, CA
Sourcemap raises $20M led by Energize Ventures
Future of Work • Series B • New York, NY
Mosaic raises $26M led by OMERS Ventures
Future of Work • Series C • San Diego, CA
Granica raises $37M led by NEA and Bain Capital Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • Mountain View, CA
Instabase raises $45M led by Tribe Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • San Francisco, CA
Digibee raises $60M led by Goldman Sachs
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series B • Weston, FL
Pigment raises $88M led by Iconiq Growth
Future of Work • Series C • Paris, France
Cohere raises $270M led by Inovia
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • Toronto, Canada
Snyk acquires Enso Security for an Undisclosed Amount
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Boston, MA