Enterprise Weekly #480: Untangling Valuations, Welcoming Our CEO-in-Residence, 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. 📩
PitchBook just released its quarterly U.S. Valuations Report and Term Sheet is calling it a classic case of “mixed signals,” which is reflected in their sector-wide data:
✅️ Deal Count: Deal count increased for 3 consecutive quarters.
✅️ Early-Stage Valuations: Average early-stage valuations nearly doubled from 2023 to $169M, while the median early-stage valuation increased by 28.6% to $45M.
✅️ Late-Stage Valuations: Average late-stage valuations reached $244.8M with median late-stage valuations at $68.6M, which is higher than the $67M median in the heat of the 2021 boom.
🔻 Step-Ups: Median step-up between series decreased to pre-pandemic levels with early-stage percentage growth in valuation at 36.4%, the second lowest in the past 10 years and a large drop from 137.7% during 2021 highs, and late-stage at a decade low of 9.6%.
🔻 Flat and Down Rounds: Flat and down rounds hit a decade high, signaling a slowdown in growth. While the majority of deals are still up rounds, 15.7% have been down rounds, and 12.7% have been flat year-to-date.
🚀 AI: Early-stage AI deals stand out with significant growth between rounds. The median percentage growth in valuation for early-stage AI in 2024 is a whopping 114.9%.
The market is distinctly split into the have and have-nots — with AI soaring, attracting significant investments, while other sectors struggle to keep pace and their high valuations. As Pitchbook noted, “there is still quite a bit of shakeout that needs to happen.”
To help our own portfolio companies with the grind, this week we announced the addition of David Politis to our team as CEO-in-Residence. 🎉 With 3 exits and 20+ years of founder and operating experience, David will support our early-stage founders in the trenches – from being a guiding light as founders navigate the dark forest of pre-product market fit to building a high-velocity and repeatable sales engine. Read more here.
Lastly, for those of you selling (or looking to sell) cybersecurity products into financial service behemoths, check out Kelley’s recent post on the nuances to consider and common pitfalls to avoid.
🗓️ Join more Work-Bench events:
August 14: How Enterprises Are Buying & Using Gen AI featuring a panel with Danny Chesley
September 10: ML Engineering Happy Hour for machine learning engineers co-hosted with Runhouse
📚 Read more news:
CNBC: OpenAI Co-Founder John Schulman Says He Will Leave and Join Rival Anthropic
Fortune: NYC Keeps Top Spot as Home to the Most Fortune 500 Companies
📚 Read more (th)reads:
Company: Jellyfish
Role: GTM Partnerships - Senior Manager
Technology: Engineering Management Platform
Funding: $114.5M from Accel, Insight Partners, and others
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Bandana raises $8.5M led by General Catalyst
HR Tech • Seed • New York, NY
Co-Founders: Timothy Makalinao (CEO), Larry Zhang (CTO), Caleb Lee
Inscora raises $2M led by Luge Capital
Risk / Security • Pre-Seed • Montreal, Canada
HubiFi raises $2.5M led by Motivate Ventures, Anthemic and Rev1
Future of Work • Seed • Columbus, OH
Skillfully raises $2.5M led by Better Ventures
HR Tech • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Bardeen raises $3M led by Dropbox Ventures and HubSpot Ventures
Collaboration / Productivity • Venture • San Francisco, CA
Hyperspace raises $9.5M led by Mizmaa
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
Napkin raises $10M led by Accel and CRV
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Los Altos, CA
Aurascape AI raises $12.8M led by Mayfield
Risk / Security • Seed • Santa Clara, CA
Datch raises $15M led by Third Prime
Future of Work • Series A • New York, NY
Anjuna raises $25M led by M Ventures, SineWave Ventures, and AI Capital Partners
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series B • Palo Alto, CA
Neon raises $25.6M led by M12
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Venture • San Francisco, CA
KNIME raises $30M led by Invus
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Zurich, Switzerland
Level AI raises $39.4M led by Adams Street Partners
Sales / Marketing • Series C • Mountain View, CA
Mechanical Orchard raises $50M led by GV
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series B • San Francisco, CA
Seeq raises $50M led by Sixth Street Growth
Future of Work • Series D • Seattle, WA
Placer.ai raises $75M led by GEM Realty Capital and Others
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • Walnut, CA
CloudPay raises $120M led by Blue Owl Capital
HR Tech • Venture • Raleigh, NC
Abnormal Security raises $250M led by Wellington Management
Risk / Security • Series D • San Francisco, CA
Groq raises $640M led by BlackRock Private Equity Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series D • Mountain View, CA
CloudBees acquires Launchable for an Undisclosed Amount
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Acquisition • San Jose, CA