Enterprise Weekly #485: Sam Altman's 7%, The Future of AI Startups, and More
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Happy Friday!
In what was shaping up to be a slow news week, OpenAI stirred up some fresh headlines.
OpenAI is reportedly planning to transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit company, a move that could make it more appealing to investors as it works to close a $6.5B round and would give Sam Altman a 7% equity stake. While this transition could take years, it marks a significant shift from its original mission to develop AI for the benefit of humanity to now, commercialization. Adding to the turbulence, there's been an exodus of execs: CTO Mira Murati (who played a key role in Altman’s ouster, becoming brief interim CEO), Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, and VP of Research Barret Zoph.
On the topic of AI, Danny moderated a VC panel at Arthur’s AI Fest on the next big moves in AI. Some key parts of the convo:
AI-first companies are scaling quickly: Even in markets thought to be constrained, verticalized AI-enabled startups are growing revenue quicker than we’ve seen in traditional applications. Many of these breakout companies are targeting mid-market and SMB customers, but the jury’s still out on if they can crack the enterprise.
The agent economy isn’t so black and white: There’s a muddy middle between full-on AGI and applications that call themselves agents. Still, investors are optimistic that AI-native companies will spawn new workflows, enabling opportunities across new markets that were previously underpenetrated with software spend (e.g., legal, construction, data aggregation for the physical world, etc).
AI research labs hold importance: Collaboration between private AI labs and startups is crucial for innovation, for now. Investors aren’t shying away from investing in companies selling directly to research labs and believe that these labs serve as strong training grounds for emerging talent, creating a foundation for future commercialization.
Lastly, this week, we had such an awesome crowd of SaaS founders and operators from companies like Airtable, dbt, Greenhouse, Rippling, Spotify, Figma, Baseten, Slack, Cockroach Labs, and more come through our NYC SaaS Happy Hour in Williamsburg. It’s clear that NYC is thriving 🚀🚀
🗓️ Join more Work-Bench events:
October 16th: Kubernetes Application Failure Workshop hosted by Prequel for SREs, DevOps professionals, and developers
October 23rd: Exited Founders Dinner co-hosted with Zac Smith to bring together like minded builders to meet, jam on ideas, and discuss what’s next
📚 Read more (th)reads:
Company: Leapfin
Role: Director of Customer Success
Technology: Financial Data Management
Funding: $24.9M from Bowery Capital, Crosslink Capital, Uncorrelated, Work-Bench
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Reframe raises $5M led by Primary Venture Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • New York, NY
Founder: Jeff Szczepanski (CEO)
Atomicwork raises $3M led by Storm Ventures, Blume Ventures, and Others
Collaboration / Productivity • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Platformatic raises $4.3M led by Rialto Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Bluebricks raises $4.5M led by Flint Capital and Glilot Capital
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
DefectDojo raises $7M led by Iolar Ventures
Risk / Security • Seed • Austin, TX
Kestra raises $8M led by Alven
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Paris, France
Icon raises $9.2M led by TTV Capital
HR Tech • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Letta raises $10M led by Felicis
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Convergence raises $12M led by Balderton
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Pre-Seed • London, UK
Tamnoon raises $12M led by Bright Pixel Capital
Risk / Security • Series A • Seattle, WA
DeepOpinion raises $12.3M led by Red River West and AIpha Intelligence Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Innsbruck, Austria
LiveFlow raises $13.5M led by Valar Ventures
Future of Work • Series A • New York, NY
System Initiative raises $18M led by Amplify Partners, Scale Venture Partners and Others
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Venture • San Francisco, CA
GEOX raises $19M led by Flashpoint Venture
Future of Work • Series A • Givatayim, Israel
Centivo raises $25M led by Cone Health Ventures
HR Tech • Series C • Buffalo, NY
Raycast raises $30M led by Atomico
Collaboration / Productivity • Series B • London, UK
Finally raises $50M led by PeakSpan Capital
HR Tech • Series B • Miami, FL
Torq raises $70M led by Evolution Equity Partners
Risk / Security • Series C • Portland, OR
UJET raises $76M led by Sapphire Ventures
Future of Work • Series D • San Francisco, CA
Supabase raises $80M led by Peak XV and Craft Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series C • Remote
Whatfix raises $125M led by Warburg Pincus
Future of Work • Series E • San Jose, CA
Blackstone and Vista Equity acquire Smartsheet for $8.4B
Collaboration / Productivity • Acquisition • Bellevue, WA
Salesforce acquires Zoomin for an Undisclosed Amount
Collaboration / Productivity • Acquisition • New York, NY