Enterprise Weekly #487: Data Center Surge, Areas of Investment, 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. 📩
As AI research labs and hyperscalers invest in new-site construction and broader AI infrastructure to harness the power of LLMs and GPUs, data centers are riding a wave of explosive growth.
To dive deeper into the trend, Danny recently hosted a Data Center Roundtable with founders, data center developers, energy brokers, server providers, and Fortune 500 customers to explore areas where venture scale opportunities could emerge in next-gen networking and infrastructure.
During the discussion, the group surfaced themes driving the industry and new investment areas we’re actively exploring at Work-Bench.
Three 🔑 Themes:
Access to reliable energy and cooling remains constrained, but are integral components to the greater data center buildout: Power and cooling are critical issues as data centers struggle to meet rising energy demands, particularly from LLM workloads. Data center developers are exploring alternative energy sources like nuclear and renewable power, while operators look to software-enabled power-orchestration management.
The industry requires collaboration and customization to flourish: To address growing complexity, the industry needs collaboration among utility companies, real estate developers, and OEMs to create future-proof, interoperable data centers that are able to service new use cases, unique to each enterprise.
New clouds will emerge to service modern workloads: Modern workloads require specialized cloud solutions that are faster, more flexible in scaling, and have the promise of vertical-specific tools, all while catering to developers by abstracting away infrastructure management.
Nine 💰 Investment Areas:
We’re exploring several areas in the data center and next-gen networking space ranging from repatriating workloads back to on-prem, serverless runtimes, the evolution of kubernetes in an AI-first world, data center infrastructure management, and much more. Danny goes into detail on each in his
Newsletter.We believe the best founder profiles to build in these areas will be operators who truly understand the ins-and-outs of the software / networking / hardware trifecta. If that sounds like you, reach out to Danny here!
🗓️ Join more Work-Bench events:
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
October 29th: Enterprise Masterclass: Creating a Predictable Top-of-Funnel Engine for Growth featuring Robin Izsak-Tseng, growth marketing leader from BetterCloud and G2
October 30th: NY Enterprise Tech Meetup: How Ramp & Figma Built World-Class Products featuring Geoff Charles, VP Product at Ramp & Mihika Kapoor, Product Lead at Figma
November 6th: Enterprise Masterclass: How To Structure a Post-Sales Process featuring our trusted Sales Advisor Kiran Narsu
📚 Read more news:
Business Insider: Where Are Gen Z's Tech Founders?
📚 Read more (th)reads:
@DanielChesley on high-value AI activities & non-core functions
Kelley Mak on risks of the aging out COBOL developer population
@fintechjunkie on luck's role in picking an AI startup winner
Company: Courier Health
Role: Data Scientist
Technology: Patient Engagement Platform
Funding: $20.5M from Norwest Venture Partners and Work-Bench
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
ApertureData raises $8.3M led by TQ Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Co-Founders: Vishakha Gupta (CEO), Luis Remis (CTO)
Vectorize raises $3.6M led by True Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Boulder, CO
Infactory raises $4M led by Bee Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Truthset raises $5M led by Data Point Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Stream raises $5.3M led by Spark Capital
Future of Work • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Cove raises $6M led by Sequoia Capital
Collaboration / Productivity • Seed • Palo Alto, CA
Prime Security raises $6M led by Foundation Capital
Risk / Security • Seed • New York, NY
Quartr raises $6M led by Altos Ventures
Future of Work • Venture • Stockholm, Sweden
CYRISMA raises $7M led by Blueprint Equity
Risk / Security • Series A • Rochester, NY
Kiva AI raises $7M led by CoinFund
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Building Radar raises $7.2M led by Socii Capital
Future of Work • Venture • Munich, Germany
Lovable raises $7.5M led by Hummingbird and byFounders
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Pre-Seed • Stockholm, Sweden
Driver raises $8M led by Google Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • Austin, TX
Lightdash raises $11M led by Accel
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Unify raises $12M led by Emergence Capital and Thrive Capital
Sales / Marketing • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Zeal raises $15M led by Portage
HR Tech • Series B • San Francisco, CA
Corvus Robotics raises $18M led by S2G Ventures and Spero Ventures
Future of Work • Series A • Mountain View, CA
Distributional raises $19M led by Two Sigma Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Berkeley, CA
Document Crunch raises $21.5M led by Titanium Ventures
Future of Work • Series B • Alpharetta, GA
Noetica AI raises $22M led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
Future of Work • Series A • New York, NY
Reylance AI raises $32M led by Thomvest Ventures
Risk / Security • Series B • San Francisco, CA
Braintrust raises $36M led by Andreessen Horowitz
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • San Francisco, CA
TensorWave raises $43M led by Nexus Venture Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • Las Vegas, NV
Human Security raises $50M led by WestCap
Risk / Security • Venture • New York, NY
Q-CTRL raises $59M led by GP Bullhound
Future of Work • Series B • Sydney, Australia
Auger raises $100M led by Oak HC/FT
Future of Work • Seed • Bellevue, WA
Zeta Global acquires LiveIntent for $250M
Sales / Marketing • Acquisition • New York, NY
Cloudflare acquires Kivera for an Undisclosed Amount
Risk / Security • Acquisition • New York, NY
Another interesting New York City event for AI and Startups on Oct 23.
https://lu.ma/naqu6xrd?tk=kJaUfp