Enterprise Weekly #451: What We See For 2024, GTM Playbooks, and More
As an enterprise software VC firm — if you are or know anyone thinking about founding an enterprise software startup — we’d love to meet! Please reach out to chat. 📩
As the last Enterprise Weekly of the year, we wanted to focus on a few key themes we see for enterprise startups in 2024:
#1. Frosty fundraising environment: Those who raised funding during 2021 market peaks and managed to prolong their financial runway until now will need to hit the fundraising trail in 2024. However, the growing number of startups looking for funding, coupled with persistently frosty funding conditions, is expected to create even more competition for checks, especially for growth rounds.
#2. A refocus on Fortune 500 customers: Success will significantly hinge on selling to large and sticky Fortune 500s (vs. other, more risky startups). Despite the tough macro environment, corporates have budgets dedicated to enabling new capabilities (e.g. GenAI, new security paradigms) and driving business efficiencies through automation (e.g. end-to-end incident management automation).
To navigate this challenging landscape, we recommend going back to the fundamentals. Check out our top Enterprise GTM Playbooks, designed to help founders and startups master repeatable and scalable tactics across Fundraising, Sales, Marketing, Product, and beyond:
🌱 Seed Fundraising Template for ICP Definition & GTM Sequencing
📞 Leveling Up Discovery and Demo Calls
📃 How to Structure a POC & POC Agreement Template
📈 Mastering Outbound Sales Without a BDR (Yet)
👩🏽🤝👨🏻 Managing BDRs
🤝 Onboarding & Outbound Execution
🚀 Creating a Scalable Customer Acquisition System
💡 Honing in on Differentiated Messaging
🔢 Leveraging a Business Value Calculator
🎯 Calculating an Enterprise Sales Pipeline Review
Lastly, as this year has been extra challenging for so many, we encourage anyone who can to give back. Some of the organizations we're supporting are below:
Food Bank for NYC: food drive and nutrition education
Marine Toys for Tots: toy drive for disadvantaged children
New York Cares Coat Drive: coat drive for NYC adults and children
Embrace the grind, keep hustling, and keep your head up 💪 And if you’re thinking about launching an enterprise software startup or have already taken the leap, it's never too early to connect with us. We’d love to share feedback and plug you into our enterprise community where helpful.
Happy holidays ❄️
📚 Read more news:
Fast Company: Why Millennial Women Are Embracing Angel Investing
The Information: How Google Got Back on Its Feet in AI Race
The Information: 8 Charts That Explain 2023
The Verge: Why The AI Act Was So Hard to Pass
WSJ: The Cloud Isn’t The Answer to All IT Problems—At Least for Now
Work-Bench: Work-Bench Spotlight: Kelley Mak on Building Customer Trust
📚 Read more (th)reads:
Company: Courier Health
Role: Product Manager
Technology: Patient Engagement Platform
Funding: $4M from Work-Bench
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Datalogz raises $5M led by GreatPoint Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • New York, NY
Founders: Logan Havern (CEO), Pablo Lerdo de Tejada (COO), Tina Bhatia (Head of Biz Dev)
VirtualZ Computing raises $2.2M led by Next Frontier Capital
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • Minneapolis, MN
CitrusX raises $4.5M led by Awz
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
Atla raises $5M led by Creandum
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • London, UK
Featureform raises $5.5M led by GreatPoint Ventures and Zetta Venture Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Hyperplane raises $6M led by SV Angel, Liquid2 Ventures and Others
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Delphina raises $7.5M led by Costanoa Ventures and Radical Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Laredo raises $8.5M led by Radical Ventures and Horizons Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • San Jose, CA
Chalk raises $10M led by General Catalyst, Unusual Ventures and Xfund
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Relevance AI raises $10M led by King River Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Sydney, Australia
Durable raises $14M led by Spark Capital
Sales / Marketing • Series A • Vancouver, Canada
Pivot raises $21.6M led by Visionaries, Emblem and Others
Future of Work • Series A • Paris, France
Opal Security raises $22M led by Battery Ventures
Risk / Security • Series B • New York, NY
Zuper raises $32M led by FUSE
Future of Work • Series B • Seattle, WA
Armada raises $55M+ led by Founders Fund, Lux Capital and Others
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series A • San Francisco, CA
AssemblyAI raises $50M led by Accel
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series C • New York, NY
ContactMonkey raises $55M led by Updata Partners
Future of Work • Series A • Toronto, Canada
Essential AI raises $56.5M led by March Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Mistral AI raises $415M led by Andreessen Horowitz
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Paris, France
Docker acquires AtomicJar for an Undisclosed Amount
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Acquisition • New York, NY