Enterprise Weekly #492: Moving Back On-Prem, Startup Tactics, 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, we’ve been cranking away on some awesome enterprise content:
☁️ Moving Back On-Prem: Kelley shared compelling insights on why enterprises like Dropbox, Pinterest, and Snap are moving workloads back on-prem. For many companies, cloud migration can be a long and strenuous journey—for example, GEICO has been pursuing a 10+ year cloud migration, but still hasn’t managed to move everything to the cloud, all while their cloud bills increased 2.5x. Engineering leaders have lost track of governance and cost controls in cloud migrations and are now thinking that some workloads are better managed in-house instead of on the cloud.
The key questions we’re thinking about:
Will old skills become new again? Will we see a renaissance in sysadmins and networking engineering?
Will new tools emerge to make on-prem easier? There is already revived interest in hardware monitoring and datacenter infrastructure management.
Will bring your own cloud (BYOC) be more common? We are seeing from our own portfolio that self-hosting is a go-to option for enterprises and BYOC could be the best of both worlds.
The rule of thumb? Static workloads don’t belong in the cloud—they’re often more cost-effective on-prem. On the other hand, workloads requiring elasticity and global reach are best left in the cloud. Curious about what’s next for enterprise cloud strategies?
💻 Rethinking Data Catalogs & Query Engines: Priyanka dove into the recent acquisition of Tabular by Databricks and how organizations will manage and query data at scale. She argues that the next phase of innovation won't come from new catalogs or query engines, but from solutions that bridge these architectural divides. The most valuable tools will turn today's complex integration patterns into standardized, configurable solutions that work seamlessly across platform-native and independent ones.
If you are a founder or a data practitioner exploring opportunities in this area, reach out to Priyanka as she’s actively looking to make an investment in this category.
Even MORE tactical advice from the team this week:
Jon’s interviews on enterprise tech’s role in the NYC ecosystem on Ephraim Yarmak's podcast and theCube
📚 Read more news:
📚 Read more (th)reads:
Company: GovWell
Role: Founding Backend Engineer
Technology: Modern Software For Local Government
Funding: $4.5M from Work-Bench, Bienville Capital
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Lume AI raises $4.2M led by General Catalyst
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • New York, NY
Co-Founders: Nicolas Machado, Robert Ross, and Nebyou Zewde
Connecty AI raises $1.8M led by Market One Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Pre-Seed • San Francisco, CA
Mona AI raises $2.1M led by Earlybird-X
HR Tech • Seed • Saarbrücken, Germany
Workflow raises $3M led by Venrex
Collaboration / Productivity • Seed • London, UK
Conflixis raises $4.2M led by Lerer Hippeau and Origin Ventures
Risk / Security • Seed • Brooklyn, NY
PuppyGraph raises $5M led by Defy.vc
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
SurePath AI raises $5.2M led by Uncork Capital
Risk / Security • Seed • Denver, CO
Fastino raises $7M led by Insight Partners and M12
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Pre-Seed • Palo Alto, CA
Bluespine raises $7.2M led by Team8
HR Tech • Seed • New York, NY
Prelude raises $8M led by Singular and Seedcamp
Risk / Security • Seed • Paris, France
IOTA Software raises $10.4M led by Altira Group
Dev Tools / Infrastructure • Series A • New York, NY
Cogna raises $15M led by Notion Capital
Future of Work • Series A • London, UK
Northflank raises $16M led by Bain Capital Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series A • London, UK
Polar Analytics raises $18M led by Chalfen Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Series A • New York, NY
PointFive raises $20M led by Salesforce Ventures
Dev Tools / Infrastructure • Series A • New York, NY
UnifyApps raises $20M led by ICONIQ Growth
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Trolley raises $23M led by Wavecrest Growth Partners
Future of Work • Series B • Toronto, Canada
LocalStack raises $25M led by Notable Capital
Dev Tools / Infrastructure • Series A • Zurich, Switzerland
Robin AI raises $25M led by Paypal Ventures, Willets, and Cambridge University
Future of Work • Series B • London, UK
Prokeep raises $25M led by Dahlia Equity Partners
Sales / Marketing • Series A • New Orleans, LA
Conduktor raises $30M led by RTP Global
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • New York, NY
Stepful raises $31.5M led by Oak HC/FT
HR Tech • Series B • Detroit, MI
ScaleOps raises $58M led by Lightspeed
Dev Tools / Infrastructure • Series B • Tel Aviv, Israel
Tessl raises $100M led by Index Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series A • London, UK
Recogni raises $102M led by Celesta Capital and GreatPoint Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series C • San Jose, CA
Chaos Industries raises $145M led by Accel
Risk / Security • Series B • Los Angeles, CA
Writer raises $200M led by Premji Invest, Radical Ventures and ICONIQ Growth
Collaboration / Productivity • Series C • San Francisco, CA