Enterprise Weekly #529: Larry Loves GPUs, Work-Bench Events, and More
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The newly crowned world’s richest man works in our favorite industry: enterprise software. That man is Larry Ellison, the founder of database juggernaut Oracle.
Oracle as a business case study is fascinating. The company started in 1977, seven years after IBM invented the relational database. Since then it has survived and thrived across multiple technology shifts: client-server, the internet, cloud, and now AI. Rather than being disrupted, Oracle is emerging as one of the winners of this new wave. On the heels of a $300B deal with OpenAI and a strong earnings call, Oracle stock jumped 36%, its largest single-day gain since 1992.
The numbers are eye-popping. Oracle expects its cloud infrastructure revenue to grow 77% this fiscal year to $18B, and projects it will surpass $100B within four years. Much of this growth is fueled by AI demand: the company has secured large contracts with OpenAI, xAI, and Meta to power their AI workloads at scale. The flip side is equally massive investment - Oracle estimates $35B in capex for 2026, mostly to purchase NVIDIA GPUs.
This dynamic creates a fascinating loop. Oracle buys chips from NVIDIA to build its cloud. NVIDIA, in turn, partners with Oracle to rent out that very compute through its DGX Cloud offering. Both companies benefit: Oracle by monetizing infrastructure, NVIDIA by selling hardware and earning revenue on the compute it enables.
In the AI era, the flow of capital isn’t linear, it’s circular, reinforcing, and increasingly lucrative for the few companies at the center of the cycle.
🗓️ Join more Work-Bench events:
🥗 Exited Enterprise Founders Lunch (September 16th): We’re excited to bring back our Exited Founders events! Join us for an intimate lunch with a group of exited enterprise founders, co-hosted by our venture partner Diego Oppenheimer, cofounder of Algorithmia (acquired by DataRobot in 2021) and cofounder of Guardrails. Reach out to Priyanka to join.
🥩 Work-Bench, MongoDB, and Tiger Global CIO / Engineering Leader Dinner (September 17th): Join us as we bring together CIOs and Engineering Leaders from scale-ups & enterprises to discuss themes across AI-to-infra and how it’s impacting NYC’s biggest enterprises. If you’re a CIO or enterprise engineering leader interested in joining the conversation, reach out to Kelley.
📚 Read more news:
TechCrunch: Anthropic reports outages, Claude and Console impacted
VentureBeat: Vibe coding is dead: Agentic swarm coding is the new enterprise moat
Bloomberg: Columbia Hack Affected 870,000 People, Included Some Health Data
Fortune: Agentic AI moves beyond hype—but true autonomy is still a ways off
🧵 Read more threads:
Company: Courier Health
Role: Senior Software Engineer - Backend
Technology: Patient Engagement Platform
Funding: $20.5M from Work-Bench and Norwest Venture Partners
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Sphinx raises $9.5M led by Lightspeed
Data / AI / Machine Learning - Seed - New York, NY
Founders: Rohan Kodialam, Jamie Bloxham
Aurva raises $2.2M led by Nexus Venture Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Sunnyvale, CA
Marloo raises $2.7M led by Blackbird Ventures
Collaboration / Productivity • Pre-Seed • London, UK
Architect AI raises $4.75M led by Project A
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • London, UK
Klaar raises $5M led by Prime Venture Partners
Future of Work • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Koah raises $5M led by Forerunner
Sales / Marketing • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Candid Intelligence raises $5.5M led by Quiet Capital
Future of Work • Seed • San Francisco, CA
LightTable raises $6M led by Primary Venture Partners
Future of Work • Seed • Denver, CO
Geordie raises $6.5M led by Ten Eleven Ventures and General Catalyst
Risk / Security • Seed • London, UK
Blocks.diy raises $10M led by Monday.com
Collaboration / Productivity • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
Cassidy raises $10M led by HOF Capital
Collaboration / Productivity • Series A • New York, NY
Dazl raises $10M led by 40RTY Fund
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • New York, NY
Hush Security raises $11M led by Battery Ventures and YL Ventures
Risk / Security • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
Adaptive Security raises $12M led by OpenAI Startup Fund
Risk / Security • Series A Extension • New York, NY
AegisAI raises $13M led by Accel and Foundation Capital
Risk / Security • Seed • San Francisco, CA / New York, NY
Runware raises $13M led by Insight Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Red Access raises $17M led by Norwest Venture Partners
Risk / Security • Series A • Tel Aviv, Israel
Isotopes.AI raises $20M led by NTTVC
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Palo Alto, CA
Spiral raises $22M led by General Catalyst and Amplify Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed & Series A • New York, NY
Brain Co. raises $30M led by Affinity Partners and Gil Capital
Future of Work • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Fyxer AI raises $30M led by Madrona
Collaboration / Productivity • Series B • London, UK
Koi raises $48M led by Battery Ventures, Team8 and Picture Capital
Risk / Security • Seed & Series A • Washington, D.C.
Higgsfield raises $50M led by GFT Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Motion raises $60M led by Scale Venture Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B & C • San Francisco, CA
DataCrunch raises $63.2M led by byFounders, Skaala, Varma, and Tesi
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series A • Helsinki, Finland
Perplexity raises $200M led by Undisclosed Investors
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • San Francisco, CA
Replit raises $250M led by Prysm Capital
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Venture • San Francisco, CA
Cognition AI raises $400M led by Founders Fund
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series C • San Francisco, CA
Databricks raises $1B led by a16z, Insight Partners, MGX, Thrive Capital, and WCM
Investment Management
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series K • San Francisco, CA
Mistral raises $2B led by ASML
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series C • Paris, France
Mitsubishi Electric acquires Nozomi Networks for ~$1B
Risk / Security • Acquisition • San Francisco, CA
Vector Capital Management acquires SingleStore for an Undisclosed Amount
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Acquisition • San Francisco, CA