Enterprise Weekly #476: NYC Conferences Highlights, What’s Wrong with SaaS, and More
Work-Bench is an enterprise software VC firm leading Seed rounds. If you are or know anyone thinking about founding an enterprise software startup — we’d love to meet! Please reach out to chat. 📩
Happy Friday! It’s a scorcher in NYC 🥵 Regardless, the Work-Bench team has been out and about, hustling:
Jon spoke on a panel at Citi’s DevOps Summit – They covered a variety of topics ranging from the role open-source will play in the future of DevOps startups, exciting trends beyond GenAI, key challenges startups face today and how to overcome them, and more. Read more of his thoughts on those topics here.
Additionally, Citi’s CTO spoke on a panel about what tools Citi is investing in for development, which focused on security tooling in CI/CD to resolve issues in situ vs. waiting to surface, as well as internal tooling as they drive for more standardized platforms. Jon shared more areas of focus for Citi here.
A handful of our portfolio founders attended AWS’s NY Summit – To no surprise, they focused on GenAI solutions. Bedrock is one of their fastest growing services from the past decade and among many new features announced at the event, two new capabilities for agents stood out: memory retention and support for code interpretation.
In other news, a new report from Avenir titled “What’s Wrong with SaaS?!” argues that “SaaS has suffered in recent years primarily due to deteriorating fundaments, not a change in the valuation paradigm,” as well as that “we’ve passed the center of the SaaS S-curve and incremental revenue will be harder to come by going forward at the sector level.” Despite these challenges, SaaS companies can still unlock sustainable growth if they go back to basics and rethink the impact of their capital investments and what efficient growth really means.
Lastly, we’re pumped to announce our portfolio company Courier Health has raised a $16.5M Series A led by Norwest Venture Partners. As the only patient-based CRM purpose-built for life sciences, we’re honored to be a part of their impactful mission to enable critical access to life-saving therapies for thousands of patients. They’re also hiring across product, engineering and GTM!
🗓️ Join more Work-Bench events:
July 24: Virtual Enterprise Masterclass on 5 Battle-Tested Leadership Tactics of Highly Successful Founders with David Politis, Founder of BetterCloud
📚 Read more news:
Business Insider: An Exodus of Investors Is Underway At Index Ventures On The Back Of A $2.3B Fundraise
Fast Company: The Rise Of The 20-Something VC
Pitchbook: US Venture Capital Outlook: Midyear Update
WSJ: Tech Job Seekers Without AI Skills Face Lower Salaries and Fewer Roles
📚 Read more (th)reads:
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Accend raises $3.2M led by Adverb Ventures
Future of Work • Seed • New York, NY
Co-Founders: Joseph Zhou, Pranjal Daga, Yutong Pei
Vortex IQ raises $1M led by Sure Valley Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Pre-Seed • London, UK
Niva raises $3.3M led by Gradient Ventures
Risk / Security • Seed • New York, NY
Vaire Computing raises $4M led by 7percent Ventures and Jude Gomila
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • London, UK
Steep raises $4.3M led by Connect Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Stockholm, Sweden
Lekko raises $4.5M led by Addition and Lux Capital
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Tracebit raises $5M led by Accel
Risk / Security • Seed • London, UK
Enso raises $6M led by NFX
Future of Work • Seed • London, UK
Synthflow raises $7.4M led by Singular
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Berlin, Germany
Redactive AI raises $7.5M led by Felicis and Blackbird
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Melbourne, Australia
Nagish raises $11M led by Canaan
Collaboration / Productivity • Series A • New York, NY
Phaidra raises $12M led by Index Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • Seattle, WA
Illumex raises $13M led by Cardumen Capital and Amdocs Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
Soda raises $14M led by Singular and Point Nine
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • Brussels, Belgium
Tembo raises $14M led by GreatPoint Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series A • Cincinnati, OH
Dust raises $16M led by Sequoia Capital
Productivity / Collaboration • Series A • Paris, France
Command Zero raises $21M led by Andreessen Horowitz
Risk / Security • Seed • Austin, TX
Orby raises $30M led by New Enterprise Associates, WndrCo and Wing
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Mountain View, CA
Armada raises $40M led by M12
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Venture • San Francisco, CA
Volumez raises $40M led by Koch Disruptive Technologies
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series A • Santa Clara, CA
Fireworks AI raises $52M led by Sequoia Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • Redwood City, CA
Odaseva raises $54M led by Silver Lake Waterman
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series C • San Francisco, CA
Regard raises $61M led by Oak HC/FT
Future of Work • Series B • Los Angeles, CA
Hebbia raises $130M led by Andreessen Horowitz
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • San Francisco, CA
Skild AI raises $300M led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue, and Others
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Pittsburgh, PA
General Atlantic and Stone Point Capital acquire HireRight for ~$1.7B
HR Tech • Acquisition • Nashville, TN