Enterprise Weekly #484: Insights for Founders on the Fundraising Frontlines, 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. 📩
This week,
published a primer for founders tackling their first Seed fundraise—a process we're deeply familiar with. Two standout takeaways:Different investors provide different value: Understanding the motivations and level of support from various Seed investor archetypes is critical to the founders’ early-stage journey. Over the past year, we’ve been on a mission to better educate founders on these long-term implications – read more in Jon’s TechCrunch byline – and it's great to see Lenny echoing similar sentiments:
Price for the right scale: Especially with recent data pointing to a widening Seed-to-Series A window, pricing too high (both money raised and valuation) at such an early stage is rife with issues that can plague the company as it prematurely scales without finding product-market fit. Now as the market has leveled out post-ZIRP era and money isn’t as easy to come by, founders should focus on refining their product and finding customer validation with leaner teams, making the Seed-stage the ideal time to nail PMF, then going on to raise a larger Series A to add fuel to the fire.
As multi-time NYC enterprise founder said this week:
🗓️ Join more Work-Bench events:
September 25th: NYC SaaS Happy Hour with only a few spots left for founders & operators 🔥
October 1st: Exited Founders Dinner for founders who have recently exited their companies & are thinking about what's next
October 16th: Kubernetes Application Failure Workshop hosted by Prequel for SREs, DevOps professionals & developers
📚 Read more news:
Financial Times: BlackRock and Microsoft Plan $30B Fund To Invest In AI Infrastructure
WIRED: Most US Teens Use Generative AI. Most of Their Parents Don’t Know
Yahoo Finance: Salesforce’s New AI Strategy Acknowledges That AI Will Take Jobs
📚 Read more (th)reads:
Company: VISO Trust
Role: Principal Growth Marketing Manager
Technology: Third Party Risk Management
Funding: $14M from Work-Bench, Bain Capital Ventures, Sierra Ventures, Lytical Ventures
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Hydden raises $4.4M led by Access Venture Partners
Risk / Security • Seed • New York, NY
Co-Founders: Jai Dargan (CEO), Paul Harper (Head of Product)
Opnova raises $3.8M led by Faber, ScaleX, and Preface Ventures
Future of Work • Venture • San Francisco, CA
VidLab7 raises $3.9M led by EQT Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Seed • Munich, Germany
Edera raises $5M led by 645 Ventures and Eniac Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • Seattle, WA
Velou raises $5M led by FUSE
Sales / Marketing • Seed • San Francisco, CA
c/side raises $6M led by Uncork Capital
Risk / Security • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Rep.ai raises $7.5M led by Browder Capital, Gradient, and M[X]V]
Sales / Marketing • Seed • Dover, DE
Knit raises $9M led by Revolution Rise of the Rest
Sales / Marketing • Seed • Austin, TX
E6data raises $10M led by Accel
Data / AI / Analytics • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Supermaven raises $12M led by Bessemer Venture Partners
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series A • New York, NY
RunSafe Security raises $12M led by Critical Ventures and SineWave Venture Partners
Risk / Security • Series B • McLean, VA
Fal.ai raises $14M led by Kindred Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Remote
DeltaStream raises $15M led by NEA, Galaxy Interactive and Sanabil Investments
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Menlo Park, CA
Fathom raises raises $17M led by Telescope Partners
Collaboration / Productivity • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Wealth.com raises $20M led by GV
Future of Work • Series A • Gilbert, AZ
Roots Automation raises $22.2M led by Harbert Growth Partners
Future of Work • Series B • New York, NY
AceUp raises $22.5M led by Techstars Ventures, Gaingels Ventures and Others
HR Tech • Series A • Boston, MA
Every raises $22.5M led by Redpoint Ventures
HR Tech • Series A • San Francisco, CA
11x raises $24M led by Benchmark
Future of Work • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Orb raises $25M led by Mayfield
Future of Work • Series B • San Francisco, CA
TeamBridge raises $28M led by Mayfield
HR Tech • Series B • San Francisco, CA
GreenLite raises $28.5M led by Craft Ventures
Future of Work • Series A • New York, NY
Cherre raises $30M led by HighSage Ventures
Future of Work • Series C • New York, NY
Intezer raises $33M led by Norwest Venture Partners
Risk / Security • Series C • New York, NY
Workday acquires Evisort for an Undisclosed Amount
Future of Work • Acquisition • San Mateo, CA
IBM acquires Kubecost for an Undisclosed Amount
Future of Work • Acquisition • San Francisco, CA