Enterprise Weekly #449: AWS re:Invent's Q, Altman is Back, and More
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We took one week off from Enterprise Weekly for Thanksgiving and the most significant corporate news of the year unfolds 🤦
While Sam Altman may be back at the helm (read his latest interview here) with a new board in place at OpenAI, last week’s drama caused ripple effects throughout the industry.
As we told TechCrunch, turmoil at the most prominent and widely-used AI provider exposed the risks of vendor lock-in for startups. We believe this will lead to more diversity in the ecosystem, forcing startups to make more informed decisions between best-in-class models and potentially propelling open source as the go-to community for those building with LLMs. Especially with new regulations coming down the pipeline, 47% of business leaders say they’ll invest more in responsible AI, including model evaluation and monitoring tools like Arthur.
Speaking of massive AI advancements, at AWS re:Invent this week, Amazon announced Amazon Q, an AI-powered chatbot trained on 17 years’ worth of AWS knowledge that aims to take on other corporate chatbots, including Microsoft Copilot, Google’s Duet AI, and ChatGPT Enterprise. As the leading cloud provider, Amazon’s hoards of data and the fact that companies can opt in to provide even more corporate data by connecting with Slack and Gmail, might better equip this model. While Amazon has historically competed on the infrastructure side, this move gives AWS an opportunity to finally compete as an application vendor.
📚 Read more news:
Forbes: 30 Under 30 2024
Bloomberg: Okta Says Hackers Stole Data for All Customer Support Users
INSIDER: VMware Employees Face Job Cuts After Broadcom Acquisition
TechCrunch: US Emerging Managers Started Their Fundraising Rebound In 2023
WSJ: ‘Accelerationists’ Come Out Ahead With Sam Altman’s Return to OpenAI
📚 Read more (th)reads:
Company: VISO Trust
Roles: Senior Product Designer (UI/UX)
Technology: Third Party Risk Management
Funding: $14M from Work-Bench, Bain Capital Ventures, Sierra Ventures, Lytical Ventures
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Lasso Security raises $6M led by Entrée Capital
Risk / Security • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
Founders: Elad Schulman (CEO), Lior Ziv (CTO), Ophir Dror (CPO), Yuval Abadi (COO)
Scalestack raises $1M led by Ripple Ventures, Forum Ventures, and Others
Sales / Marketing • Pre-Seed • New York, NY
Artisan raises $2.3M led by Bayhouse Capital and Oliver Jung
Future of Work • Pre-Seed • San Francisco, CA
Suger raises $2.5M co-led by Craft Ventures and Intel Capital
Sales / Marketing • Seed • San Francisco, CA
HockeyStack raises $2.7M led by General Catalyst
Sales / Marketing • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Zerve raises $3.8M led by Elkstone Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Pre-Seed • Cahir, Ireland
Quoherent raises $4.7M led by Mopheus Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • Huntsville, AL
CoordinateHQ raises $5.5M led by Initialized
Collaboration / Productivity • Seed • Redwood City, CA
Expanso raises $7.5M led by General Catalyst and Hetz Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • Seattle, WA
Cloudsmith raises $11M led by MMC Ventures
Risk / Security • Series A • Belfast, Ireland
Hololight raises $12M led by Flatz Hoffman
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Innsbruck, Austria
Inclusively raises $13M led by Firework Ventures
Future of Work • Series A • Richmond, VA
Vendelux raises $14M led by FirstMark Capital
Sales / Marketing • Series A • New York, NY
Lynx raises $18.5M led by Forgepoint Capital
Risk / Security • Series A • Madrid, Spain
Kognitos raises $20M led by Khosla Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • San Jose, CA
DuploCloud raises $32M co-led by WestBridge Capital and StepStone Group
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series B • San Jose, CA
Stensul raises $34.5M led by Sageview Capital
Sales / Marketing • Series C • New York, NY
Ninety raises $35M led by Blue Cloud Ventures
Collaboration / Productivity • Series B • Atlanta, GA
Candex raises $45M led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management
Future of Work • Series B • New York, NY
AI21 Labs raises $53M led by Intel Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series C • Tel Aviv, Israel
LucidLink raises $75M led by Brighton Park Capital
Collaboration / Productivity • Series C • San Francisco, CA
Oxford Quantum Circuits raises $100M led by SBI Investment
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • Reading, UK
Together raises $102.5M led by Kleiner Perkins
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Menlo Park, CA
BlueVoyant raises $140M led by Liberty Strategic Capital
Risk / Security • Series E • New York, NY
Broadcom acquires VMWare for $61B
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Acquisition • Palo Alto, CA