Enterprise Weekly #517: From Augmentation to Automation, M&A Moves, and More
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Earlier this week, Danny called out how employees who rely on AI copilots today may soon find the scope of their roles shrinking due to shifting responsibility to context-aware agents in his latest post, From Augmentation to Automation: How AI Is Reshaping Work and Creating New Opportunities to Build.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei echoed these thoughts, warning that AI could soon replace half of all white-collar entry level roles within the next five years as LLMs rapid advancement becomes capable of matching and exceeding human performance.
While it’s clear roles are changing fast, we’re optimistic. Historically, every major technological leap from the printing press to the PC has reshaped jobs and created entirely new domains of work. AI will be no different.
As Danny’s outlined in his post, a framework for spotting roles that are ripe for automation and where there’s room to build venture-scale companies is looking for:
Value scales with access: A role becomes more useful when its knowledge or outputs are democratized.
Interfacing with data, but not owning outcomes: Roles that primarily involve handling structured or unstructured data without being responsible for creating the data or manipulating it to drive core business outcomes.
Noncore roles that are dependent on speed: Non-core support functions that grow in value as execution speed increases.
We’re moving from a world where AI helps you do your job, to one where AI does the job and humans supervise. The next generation of category-defining software won’t just support how we work, it will redefine it entirely.
👋 If you're building in agent automation or rethinking the future of work, we'd love to chat.
The push toward automation is also fueling a wave of strategic M&A.
This week, Salesforce announced its $8B acquisition of cloud data management company Informatica. As AI agents grow more capable, their performance increasingly depends on access to clean, well-integrated data. Salesforce is betting Informatica’s expertise in data integration could supercharge their Agentforce platform by giving its agents the high-quality inputs they need to operate at scale.
Meanwhile, Zscaler acquired Red Canary, a standout in Managed Detection and Response (MDR). The deal extends Zscaler’s footprint from network to endpoint security and broadens its control across the full security stack. Zscaler is also gaining a services business. Given the industry discussion about AI and automation improving services margins, Zscaler may be positioned to benefit from these efficiency gains.
🗓️ Join more Work-Bench events:
📖 Not Another CEO - Shoveling Sh!t Book Launch with Kass and Mike Lazerow (June 10th): Not Another CEO is hosting the first-ever live podcast recording. This event will feature Kass and Mike, Co-Founders of Buddy Media, in conversation with David Politis, Founder of BetterCloud, about the chaos, beauty and heartbreak of building startups. Sign up here.
🥩 Security & Agentic Infra Dinners (June 12th & June 26th). Join Priyanka to discuss what’s next in security & AI infra. Reach out to Priyanka.
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📚 Read more news:
WSJ: Nvidia’s Business Is Booming Despite Being Shut Out of China
Nasdaq: Netskope Prepares for IPO
TechCrunch: DeepSeek’s distilled new R1 AI model can run on a single GPU
The Atlantic: OpenAI Can Stop Pretending
🧵 Read more threads
🎙️🎬Jessica Lin: What it takes to be a great investor, fund manager, and firm builder
Bond Capital: Mary Meeker & Bond Capital’s Trends in AI Report
Alex Clayton: Today’s AI Growth is Outpacing Hyperscaler’s Cloud Demand
Company: VISO Trust
Role: Enterprise Account Executive
Technology: Third Party Risk Management Platform
Funding: $21M from Work-Bench, Bain Capital Ventures, and more
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Unbound raises $4M led by Race Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Co-Founders: Rajaram Srinivasan, Vignesh Subbiah
Spott raises $3.2M led by Base10 Partners
HR Tech • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Ankar raises $4.1M led by Index Ventures
Collaboration / Productivity • Seed • London, UK
Dastra raises $4.9M led by C4 Ventures and ADNEXUS
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • Paris, France
Traceloop raises $6.1M led by Sorenson Capital and Ibex Investors
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
Gail raises $8.2M led by HTwenty and Act One Ventures
Future of Work • Seed • Miami, FL
Context raises $11M led by Lux Capital
Collaboration / Productivity • Seed • Palo Alto, CA
Inven raises $12.8M led by Ventech and Vendep Capital
Collaboration / Productivity • Series A • Helsinki, Finland
Creatify raises $15.5M led by WndrCo and Kindred Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Series A • Mountain View, CA
Superblocks raises $23M led by Kleiner Perkins, Spark Capital, Greenoaks, and Meritech Capital
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series A • New York, NY
Rillet raises $25M led by Sequoia Capital
Collaboration / Productivity • Series A • New York, NY
Pallet raises $27M led by General Catalyst
Future of Work • Series B • Fremont, CA
Cerby raises $40M led by DTCP
Risk / Security • Series B • Alameda, CA
Chalk raises $50M led by Felicis
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series A • San Francisco, CA
CloudZero raises $56M led by BlueCrest Capital Management and Innovius Capital
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series C • Boston, MA
Hex raises $70M led by Avra
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series C • San Francisco, CA
Horizon3.ai raises $73M led by NEA
Risk / Security • Venture • San Francisco, CA
Salesforce acquires Informatica for $8B
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Acquisition • Redwood City, CA
Intelligent Technical Solutions acquires Black Breach for an Undisclosed Amount
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Las Vegas, NV
Limerston Capital acquires CyberCrowd for an Undisclosed Amount
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Newbury, UK
WSO2 acquires Moesif for an Undisclosed Amount
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Acquisition • San Francisco, CA
Zscaler acquires Red Canary for an Undisclosed Amount
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Denver, CO