Enterprise Weekly #452: VCJ Rising Star, The State of Funding, and More
Welcome back! We’re kicking off the year with exciting news that our data, developer tool, and cloud-native infrastructure expert Priyanka Somrah was named to the Venture Capital Journal's 2024 Rising Stars list 🌟 If you’re a building in those spaces, subscribe to her Data Source Newsletter!
Carta just released their State of Private Markets Q4’23 report, showing valuations across every stage (except Series C) saw slight increases from the prior quarter, but are still way off from Q1’22’s all-time highs:
Seed median pre-money valuation: $14M
Seed median round size: $3M
Series A median pre-money valuation: $45M
Series A median round size: $9M
Series B median pre-money valuation: $103M
Series B median round size: $16M
Looking at valuation step-ups between rounds, we can see that the premium investors are willing to pay at the Series A have fallen off a cliff (see the Series A / Seed chart below). The many companies who raised highly valued Seed rounds during the 2021/22 hype cycle made it difficult for downstream investors to underwrite new priced rounds at higher valuations, causing this decline.
Unfortunately, we believe the frosty funding environment will continue this year as many startups will fall short of the required growth metrics to reach the next stage and support their lofty valuations. The collapse at the Series A has caused investors to wonder if this will create two polarizing opportunities – Seed and growth, with no room for muddy waters at the Series A.
As a reminder, we're still out here leading Seed deals, revving our founders' GTM engine, and helping them find the right Series A partners. If you’re a founder building an early-stage enterprise software startup, we’d love to meet - reach out to chat.
For founders who are looking to cross the Seed to Series A chasm, there is only one way through - and that is to build great products that solve significant business problems. Keep at it, and wishing everyone all the best for 2024 💪
📚 Roundup of predictions:
Fortune on AI predictions
TechCrunch on 40 investor predictions
TechCrunch on VCs predict more exits
📚 Read more (th)reads:
Company: Alkymi
Role: Senior Data Solutions Architect
Technology: Data Extraction & Document Automation
Funding: $26M from Intel Capital, Canaan Partners and Work-Bench
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
UltiHash raises $2.5M led by Inventure
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Pre-Seed • San Francisco, CA
Founder: Tom Lüdersdorf (CEO)
Magic Feedback raises $1.3M led by Maki VC
Future of Work • Pre-Seed • Copenhagen, Denmark
Intrinsic raises $3.1M led by Urban Innovation Fund, Y Combinator and Others
Risk / Security • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Giga ML raises ~$3.7M led by Nexus Venture Partners, Liquid 2 Ventures and Others
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Arcane raises $5M led by Accel
Sales / Marketing • Seed • London, England
Turngate raises $5M led by Paladin Capital Group
Risk / Security • Seed • Ellicott City, MD
Salvador Technologies raises $6M led by Pico Venture Partners
Risk / Security • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
Strike Graph raises $8.5M led by BAMCAP
Risk / Security • Venture • Seattle, WA
Distributional raises $11M led by Andreessen Horowitz
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
ScaleOps raises $21.5M led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, NFX and Glilot Capital Partners
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series A • Tel Aviv, Israel
Robin AI raises $26M led by Temasek
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • London, UK
Link11 raises $29.2M led by Pride Capital Partners
Risk / Security • Private Equity • Frankfurt, Germany
Halcyon raises $40M led by Bain Capital Ventures
Risk / Security • Series B • Austin, TX
SimSpace raises $45M led by L2 Point Management
Risk / Security • Venture • Boston, MA
Aqua Security raises $60M led by Evolution Equity Partners
Risk / Security • Series E • Boston, MA
Perplexity raises $70M led by IVP
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • San Francisco, CA
Harvey raises $80M led by Elad Gil, Kleiner Perkins and Others
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • San Francisco, CA
Lightmatter raises $155M led by GV and Viking Global Investors
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series C • Boston, MA
Clearlake Capital Group and Insight Partners acquires Alteryx for $4.4B
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Acquisition • Irvine, CA
Okta acquires Spera Security for $100M+
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Tel Aviv, Israel
Airtable acquires Airplane for an Undisclosed Amount
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Acquisition • San Francisco, CA
Cisco acquires Isovalent for an Undisclosed Amount
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Cupertino, CA
Salesforce acquires Spiff for an Undisclosed Amount
Sales / Marketing • Acquisition • Sandy, UT
ServiceNow acquires UltimateSuite for an Undisclosed Amount
Future of Work • Acquisition • Prague, Czech Republic
Snowflake acquires Samooha for an Undisclosed Amount
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Acquisition • Los Altos Hills, CA