Enterprise Weekly #518: Defensibility in AI, NY Tech Week Roundup, 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. 📩
On Tuesday, Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan tweeted that Anthropic had abruptly cut off the code editor’s direct access to Claude 3.x models, despite Windsurf offering to pay for full capacity. The move comes as Anthropic’s main competitor, OpenAI, is in talks to acquire the AI coding platform for ~$3B.
Then on Wednesday, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Record, a feature that captures meetings and summarizes them. The timing raised eyebrows given that just weeks ago, Granola, a fast growing meeting note recorder, announced a $43M Series B after going viral in tech circles. Coincidence? Maybe, but it highlights a pressing question:
In the age of AI, what makes a company defensible?
Is it proprietary access to foundation models? Control over distribution channels? A robust integration ecosystem? Anthropic showed how quickly access can be turned off to SOTA models while OpenAI reminded everyone just how quickly fast-moving incumbents can ship into hot markets. This post sums up a lot of the challenges for anyone building in AI today.
So, what does all this mean for the next breakout startup built on top of someone else’s stack?
In local news, NY Tech Week was a packed and exciting one for us at Work-Bench!
We had the pleasure of welcoming incredible founders and builders from across the country with two standout events:
We hosted our 5th annual Developer Happy Hour, bringing together the software engineering community for skyline views, cold drinks, and great conversation.
We also co-hosted a Modern Data & ML Infra Meetup alongside our portfolio company Runhouse and our friends at bauplan, diving into the latest trends shaping Data and ML infrastructure.
At Work-Bench, we're always eager to grow our engineering community and connect with those tackling the next wave of infrastructure challenges. If you're building in this space or want in on the next rooftop hang, drop us a message 😎
💻 Speaking of engineers, our portfolio company GovWell is hiring Software Engineers to modernize government services!
In under 2 years, GovWell’s partnered with 50+ government agencies in 25 states, powering services for over 1 million Americans. Their team of 29 is deeply mission-oriented, with an engineering-led culture: each developer owns major parts of their product and works directly with customers to ship fast and improve mission-critical systems.
✅ Tech stack: TypeScript, React, Node, PostgreSQL
✅ Early team role with substantial equity
✅ Huge mission + chance for impact
✅ 3+ days a week in person at HQ in NYC
Reach out if you’d like an introduction!
🗓️ Join more Work-Bench events:
🏥 Work-Bench NY Enterprise Tech Meetup: AI-Powered Hypergrowth in Healthcare with Adonis & Tennr (June 24th): Join us as we sit down with two of NYC’s fastest growing healthcare AI companies, Adonis & Tennr to hear their lessons learned from building & scaling healthcare AI products. Sign up here.
🥩 Work-Bench Security & Agentic Infra Dinners (June 26th): Join Priyanka and a select group of practitioners to discuss what’s next in security & AI infra. Reach out to Priyanka.
💻 The New York Data Science & AI Conference Presented by Lander Analytics (August 26th & 27th): Join top Data, AI, and ML professionals in NYC to hear from world-class speakers, participate in hands-on workshops, and learn about cutting-edge insights across industries. Sign up here or DM us for a promo code.
🍽️ Cofounders.nyc: Healthcare AI Dinner with Rez Khan, VP of Product at Abridge (Ongoing): Join the cofounders.nyc community and Rez Khan, VP of Product at Abridge to discuss what it takes to build and sell to healthcare organizations. Reach out to Danny directly.
📚 Read more news:
WSJ: How Morgan Stanley Tackled One of Coding’s Toughest Problems
VentureBeat: OpenAI hits 3M business users and launches workplace tools to take on Microsoft
Bloomberg: The New Billionaires of the AI Boom
TechCrunch: Cursor’s Anysphere nabs $9.9B valuation, soars past $500M ARR
Wired: Silicon Valley Is Starting to Pick Sides in Musk and Trump’s Breakup
🧵 Read more threads:
🎙️ Jessica Lin: Best Practices for Engineering Capacity Planning
Maggie Basta: The (Lack of) Correlation Between Speed to $100M ARR & Magnitude of Exit Value
Notable Capital: Is ARR Dead – Or Just Evolving? A Look At Consumption Based Pricing
Company: GovWell
Role: Software Engineers
Technology: Modern Software for Governments
Funding: $5.5M from Work-Bench, Bienville Capital
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Console raises $6.2M led by Thrive Capital
Collaboration / Productivity • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Co-Founders: Andrei Serban, Neal Chandra
LuminX raises $5.5M led by GTMFund, 9Yards, and Others
Future of Work • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Freeplay raises $5.6M led by Renegade Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Boulder, CO
Literal Labs raises $6.2M led by Northern Gritstone and Mercuri
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Pre-Seed • Newcastle, UK
deepdots raises $6.3M led by Dawn Capital
Sales / Marketing • Seed • Copenhagen, Denmark
Archil raises $6.7M led by Felicis
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Veris AI raises $8.5M led by Decibel Ventures and Acrew Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • New York, NY
Thunder Code raises $9M led by Silicon Badia
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • Paris, France
GC AI raises an Undisclosed Amount led by Sound Ventures
Future of Work • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Rally raises $11M led by Canapi Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Series A • New York, NY
Baobob Insurance raises $13.7M led by Viola Fintech and eCapital
Risk / Security • Series A • Berlin, Germany
Labrys raises $20M led by Plural
HR Tech • Series A • London, UK
Thread AI raises $20M led by Greycroft
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • New York, NY
Dataplor raises $20.5M led by F-Prime
Future of Work • Series B • Manhattan Beach, CA
Ciroos raises $21M led by Energy Impact Partners
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • Pleasanton, CA
Fabriq raises $25M led by Expedition Growth Capital
Future of Work • Venture • Paris, France
Sema4.ai raises $25M led by Snowflake Ventures, Rocketship VC and Others
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Atlanta, GA
Trustifi raises $25M led by Camber Partners
Risk / Security • Series A • New York, NY
Wordsmith AI raises $25M led by Index Ventures
Future of Work • Series A • Edinburgh, UK
Mind raises $30M led by Paladin Capital Group and Crosspoint Capital Partners
Risk / Security • Series A • Seattle, WA
Voxel raises $44M led by NewRoad Capital Partners
Future of Work • Series B • San Francisco, CA
Zero Networks raises $55M led by Highland Europe
Risk / Security • Series C • Tel Aviv, Israel
Prepared raises $80M led by General Catalyst
Future of Work • Series C • New York, NY
Snowflake acquires Crunchy Data for ~$250M
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Acquisition • Charleston, SC
NinjaOne acquires Dropsuite for $270M
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Melbourne, Australia
Salesforce acquires Moonhub for an Undisclosed Amount
HR Tech • Acquisition • Menlo Park, CA