Enterprise Weekly #486: Copycat Is Out of the Bag, Building World Class Products, 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!
This week's drama surrounding PearAI is a hard lesson in copycats. If you're new to the story, YC-backed PearAI tried to pass off its cloned version of other open source projects (VSCode and another AI code editor Continue) with its own made-up closed license, which the founder admitted was written by ChatGPT.
Aside from being a violation of the legalities and spirit of open source, the debacle points to a longstanding challenge founders face of copycats and the current dilemma where the pace of AI and tech technology infrastructure has made imitations more prevalent than ever.
Our CEO-in-Residence David Politis wrote a timely article on this where he details 4 ways he's seen companies set themselves apart that can't be duplicated overnight, across community, mission-driven team, customer success, and thought leadership.
On the topic of building world-class products with defensible moats, we’re hosting our next NY Enterprise Tech Meetup on Wednesday, October 30th with a special live podcast recording 🎙️featuring Geoff Charles (VP of Product at Ramp) and Mihika Kapoor (Product Lead at Figma). Join us as we dig into the tactics that got Ramp and Figma off the ground and into the hands of millions.
🗓️ 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 news:
NYTimes: A Venture Capital Firm Does Something Rare: Give Money Back
Pitchbook: Emerging Tech Future Report: Updating Our Generative AI Outlook
The Verge: OpenAI Just Raised $6.6B To Build Ever-Larger AI Models
📚 Read more (th)reads:
Company: GovWell
Role: Founding Data Engineer
Technology: Modern Software for Governments
Funding: $4.5M from Work-Bench, Bienville Capital
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Thread AI raises $6M led by Index Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • New York, NY
Co-Founders: Angela McNeal (CEO), Mayada Gonimah (CTO)
Enlaye raises $1.7M led by Glasswing VC and Hannah Grey VC
Future of Work • Pre-Seed • Boston, MA
Billables AI raises $3.9M led by Wing VC
Future of Work • Seed • San Francisco, CA
iAsk raises $4.2M led by Corazon Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Chicago, IL
Ameba raises $7M led by Hedosophia
Future of Work • Seed • London, UK
Artisan raises $7.3M led by Oliver Jung
Sales / Marketing • Seed • San Francisco, CA
DocJuris raises $8M led by Silverton Partners
Future of Work • Series A • Houston, TX
Reducto raises $8.4M led by First Round Capital
Future of Work • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Vieu raises $11M led by Trilogy Equity Partners
Sales / Marketing • Seed • Seattle, WA
Wispr raises $12M led by Matt Kraning
Collaboration / Productivity • Venture • San Francisco, CA
Atlas Metrics raises $13.6M led by MMC Ventures
Future of Work • Series A • Berlin, Germany
Neeve raises $15M led by Cantor Fitzgerald and RXR
Risk / Security • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Apono raises $15.5M led by New Era Capital Partners
Risk / Security • Series A • New York, NY
Harmonic Security raises $17.5M led by Next47
Risk / Security • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Rogo raises $18.5M led by Khosla Ventures
Future of Work • Series A • New York, NY
xtype raises $21M led by Norwest Venture Partners
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series A • Covina, CA
11x raises $24M led by Andreessen Horowitz
Future of Work • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Vizit raises $25M led by Industry Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Series B • Boston, MA
Resolve AI raises $35M led by Greylock
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Qodo raises $40M led by Susa Ventures and Square Peg
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series A • Tel Aviv, Israel
DataPelago raises $47M led by Eclipse, Qualcomm Ventures, and Others
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Venture • Mountain View, CA
Nym raises $47M led by PSG
Future of Work • Venture • Tel Aviv, Israel
Crescendo raises $50M led by General Catalyst
Future of Work • Series C • San Francisco, CA
Eon raises $77M led by Greenoaks
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series B • New York, NY
Poolside raises $500M led by Bain Capital Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series B • San Francisco, CA
OpenAI raises $6.6B led by Thrive Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • San Francisco, CA