Enterprise Weekly #550: Earnings Beats Across the Board, Block Cuts 40% Workforce, and More
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Happy Friday.
This was a week of technology and software earnings calls. For all the talk about SaaSpocalypse and the future of public technology businesses, point-in-time performance is an essential element that can’t be left out of the picture. This week’s calls gave us a glimpse of that - here’s a recap:
NVIDIA: They can’t stop growing. Their total revenue for the quarter was $68B (beat expectations), representing 73% YoY growth. The hyperscalers remain NVIDIA’s largest customer segment, representing just over 50% of revenue. NVIDIA’s networking business reported ~$11B in revenue; it’s fun to think about how much of the business line emerged from their 2019 acquisition of Mellanox for $7B. Legendary acquisition cemented.
Salesforce: The company reported $11.2B of revenue for the quarter (beat expectations), up 12% YoY. That’s their fastest growth rate in two years. Their Agentforce business hit $800M of ARR; they’ve consumed nearly 20T trillions and converted that into 2.4B agentic work units.
Workday: The HCM giant reported $2.53B revenue for the quarter (beat expectations), growing 14.5% YoY. Their annualized revenue for AI products now exceeds $400M. CEO Aneel Bhusri shared that Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google all run on Workday, attempting to dispel the “AI is eating software” fears by showing that the AI leaders themselves run on Workday.
Snowflake: The data warehouse leader grew 30% YoY, with $1.28B for the quarter. The stickiness of their data infrastructure products is represented in their 125% net retention rate. 733 customers pay Snowflake $1M or more, a number that’s up 27% YoY.
So what do we make of all this? The narrative of “AI eating software” continues to collide with something more mundane but more important: software businesses are still growing. Across NVIDIA, Salesforce, Workday, and Snowflake, we saw beats, expanding AI revenue lines, and net retention that signals customers are spending more, not less. And yet with the exception of Salesforce, stock prices for these names are down. The market isn’t grading on revenue anymore; it wants margin expansion as proof that the AI investment cycle is paying off. For most of these names, that verdict is still out.
One company that the market did respond favorably to was Block, but not for the reason you’d expect. Block stock jumped 16%, following an announcement by CEO Jack Dorsey that the company is cutting 40% of their workforce. According to Dorsey, this was less so a move of panic and more so an acknowledgement of how AI will invariably change team dynamics and an attempt to pull that pain forward. If this is a sign of anything, it’s that AI has put up a mirror to organizations to ask the hard question on what, and also who, is really needed.
🔐 Slow + Work-Bench: Cyber Dinner (Mar 4th): We’re teaming up with our friends at Slow Ventures to host a dinner for security founders and operators in NYC. If you’re a founder, engineer, or PM building at the next frontier of security, we’d love to have you. We have a few spots left. Sign up here to grab one.
📚 Read more news:
WSJ: Amazon Tries Its Low-Cost Approach to Winning the AI Race
TechCrunch: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: This isn’t our first SaaSpocalypse
VentureBeat: ServiceNow resolves 90% of its own IT requests autonomously. Now it wants to do the same for any enterprise
Reuters: Zscaler posts wider quarterly loss on higher spending; shares down 9%
🧵 Read more threads:
Jessica Lin: Lessons as an Emerging Manager
Jon Lehr: Enterprise Sales Is Now Political Chess
Kelley Mak: Agents vs. The Installed Base
Ken Johnson: AI Security - Hype vs Reality
Company: Petra Labs
Role: Founding Engineer
Technology: Attribution Engine for AI-Native Search
Funding: Unannounced
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Elly raises $8M led by Sorenson Capital
HR Tech • Seed • New York, NY
Founders: Kristen Habacht, Nic Mahaney
Potpie raises $2.2M led by Emergent Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Pre-Seed • San Francisco, CA
Evoke Security raises $4M led by Crosspoint Capital Partners
Risk / Security • Pre-Seed • Austin, TX
7Rivers raises $5M led by Inoca Capital Partners
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Milwaukee, WI
T54 Labs raises $5M led by Anagram, PL Capital, and Franklin Templeton
Future of Work • Seed • San Francisco, CA
JetScale AI raises $5.4M led by BDC and Diagram ClimateTech Fund
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • Montreal, Canada
Circadian Risk raises $6M led by Arthur Ventures
Risk / Security • Series A • Ann Arbor, MI
Swan raises $6M led by Link Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Venture • Tel Aviv, Israel
Kinfolk raises $7.2M led by AlbionVC
HR Tech • Seed • London, UK
Elly raises $8M led by Sorenson Capital
HR Tech • Seed • New York, NY
QuiverAI raises $8.3M led by a16z
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Profitmind raises $9M led by Accenture Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Series A • Pittsburgh, PA
BeyondMath raises $10M led by Cambridge Innovation Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed Extension • London, UK
Callosum raises $10.3M led by Plural
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Venture • London, UK
VoiceLine raises $11.8M led by Alstin Capital and Peak
Sales / Marketing • Series A • Munich, Germany
Portkey raises $15M led by Elevation Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • San Francisco, CA
ElastixAI raises $18M led by Undisclosed Backers
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • Seattle, WA
Solid raises $20M led by Team8 and SignalFire
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • New York, NY
Koah raises $20.5M led by Theory Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Series A • San Francisco, CA
FirmPilot raises $22M led by DeepWork Capital
Future of Work • Series A • Miami, FL
ThreatAware raises $25M led by One Peak
Risk / Security • Series A • London, UK
Astelia raises $35M led by Index Ventures and Team8
Risk / Security • Seed & Series A • New York, NY
Union.ai raises $38M led by NEA
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Bellevue, WA
Letter AI raises $40M led by Battery Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Series B • Chicago, IL
Nimble raises $47M led by Norwest
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • New York, NY
Guidde raises $50M led by PSG Equity
HR Tech • Series B • Tel Aviv, Israel
Rowspace raises $50M led by Sequoia Capital and Emergence Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed & Series A • San Francisco, CA
SolveAI raises $50M led by GV and Accel
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Pre-Seed & Series A • London, UK
Gambit Security raises $61M led by Spark Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Cyberstarts
Risk / Security • Seed & Series A • Tel Aviv, Israel
Humand raises $66M led by Goodwater Capital and Kaszek Ventures
HR Tech • Series A • San Francisco, CA
UpGuard raises $75M led by Springcoast Partners
Risk / Security • Series C • Mountain View, CA
Profound raises $96M led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
Sales / Marketing • Series C • New York, NY
Basis raises $100M led by Accel and GV
Future of Work • Series B • New York, NY
Code Metal raises $125M led by Salesforce Ventures
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Series B • Boston, MA
SambaNova raises $350M led by Vista Equity Partners and Cambium Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series E • Palo Alto, CA
Anthropic acquires Vercept for an Undisclosed Amount
Future of Work • Acquisition • Seattle, WA
Arctic Wolf acquires SevcoSecurity for an Undisclosed Amount
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Austin, TX
Everpure acquires 1touch for an Undisclosed Amount
Risk / Security • Acquisition • New York, NY
Experian acquires AtData for an Undisclosed Amount
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Newton, MA
Salesforce acquires Momentum for an Undisclosed Amount
Sales / Marketing • Acquisition • San Francisco, CA