Q1 & Q2 Highlights: State of the Market, Infrasummer, and More
2023 so far has been a whirlwind. The SVB crisis catapulted the market, pricing feels like 2021 all over again, and Generative AI hype has reached a fever pitch.
However, at Work-Bench, we’ve approached this environment as we always have – thoughtful in how we spend our time, deliberate in our actions, and continually making refinements to how we source and win new deals, and help scale our portfolio companies. Here’s a recap of what we’ve been seeing and doing since the start of the year:
🌱 Seed Pricing: As we survey the market, Seed pricing continues to stay elevated for a variety of reasons, but most notable from multi-stage firms writing “option call” checks into Seed deals. Deal activity at Series A and B is still slower than 2021, so multi-stage firms view writing four large Seed checks at inflated valuations a “safer” move than investing in one core Series A opportunity. As a Seed fund, we have seen many first-time founders over-raise at this early stage even through it hurts their company’s prospects over a longer time frame, and this is why we are ardent believers in Seed-stage founders raising from Seed funds.
🤓 Generative AI: We continue to stick to our tried and true mantra that great things happen at the intersection of “suits and hoodies.” For our May NY Enterprise Tech Meetup, we organized a session on “LLMs in the Enterprise” and heard both the startup and corporate POV of where generative AI is heading from Arthur (a Work-Bench portfolio company), MosaicML, and Morgan Stanley. Read recaps in the Wall Street Journal and Information Week.
☀️ #Infrasummer: When we started Work-Bench 10 years ago, NYC wasn’t an enterprise town. But that’s changed dramatically thanks to trailblazers like Datadog, MongoDB, Cockroach Labs, Grafana, Timescale, NS1, and others. On the Infrastructure front, we continue our search for the next generation of Developer Tooling and Infrastructure startups building in NYC with what we’re calling “Infrasummer,” a blitz of themed events. We’ve already kicked off with our Annual Developer Happy Hour and Future of Infrastructure Dinner with Menlo Ventures. Drop your info here be considered for future events!
📣 Conferences: We took to the stage talking all things enterprise software:
Jessica at Cisco’s Magnetic Aspire on improving diversity in tech and Cooley’s Navigating Today’s Market on scaling during challenging times
Jon at Bank of America’s Tech Innovation Summit on selling into Wall Street
Daniel at InnovateMap’s Brunch & Learn on product strategy
Priyanka at The Data Conference on VC trends in data infrastructure
🍺 Community: In the midst of challenging markets, building is done better together. So we got creative in hosting some of the most fun events in town: Womenterprise Summit, Whiskey Tasting, Infrastructure Leaders Dinner, Growth Marketers Happy Hour, New to New York Happy Hour, Monthly Future Founders Dinners, AMAs and so much more.
To our entire enterprise community out there, keep on keeping on! And if you know any enterprise founders or operators looking for investment or to be plugged into our network, please reach out.
- Jessica Lin
🎉 Congrats To Our Portfolio Companies 🎉
Catalyst raised strategic funding from Databricks.
Read about the customer-success platform in VentureBeat.Streamdal raised a $5.4M Seed led by Work-Bench.
Read about the streaming data monitoring platform in TechCrunch.Spring Health raised $71M at a $2.5B valuation.
Read about the mental health platform on their blog.We also made two stealth Seed-stage investments and are excited to share more later this year.
📚 Our Recent Tactical Content 📚
📚 Our Recent Technical Research 📚
🗞️ In The News 🗞️
Generative AI Pilots Have Companies Reaching for the Guardrails
Work-Bench & Arthur • Wall Street Journal • May 19, 2023
Enterprises Taking Tempered Approach to Large Language Models
Work-Bench & Arthur • Information Week • May 18, 2023
CNBC Disruptor 50
Spring Health • CNBC • May 9, 2023
Hallucinations, Data Leaks, Toxic Language: How Arthur AI Is Draining the ChatGPT Cesspool
Arthur • Fast Company • May 5, 2023
How To Put Safeguards In Place With AI
Arthur • Bloomberg TV • May 4, 2023
Arthur Aims To Offer Businesses An AI Firewall
Arthur • Axios• May 4, 2023
Is It Time To ‘Shield’ AI With a Firewall? Arthur AI Thinks So
Arthur • VentureBeat • May 4, 2023
Data Sovereignty, Compliance Shape IT Leadership
Cockroach Labs • Information Week • May 4, 2023
What Big Tech's Earnings Tell Us About The Local Industry
Cockroach Labs • Crain’s New York Business • April 27, 2023
SeeMetrics Wins Cybersecurity Performance Management (CPM) Award at RSA Conference 2023
SeeMetrics • PR Newswire • April 24, 2023
Dialpad Infuses More AI Into Its Customer Intelligence Platform
Dialpad • SiliconANGLE • April 18, 2023
19 Startups To Check Out at RSA Conference 2023
VISO Trust • CSO Online • April 18, 2023
Dialpad Crosses $200M in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
Dialpad • Business Wire • April 17, 2023
How to Make Your Company Core Values Stick
FireHydrant • Built In • April 5, 2023
Interview With Harald Collet, Alkymi
Alkymi • KPMG • April 5, 2023
Catalyst Promotes Sha Ma To Chief Technology Officer
Catalyst • Business Wire • March 29, 2023
SVB Collapse Puts Pressure On Enterprise-Tech Pipeline
Work-Bench • Wall Street Journal • March 14, 2023
Customers Face Problems Accessing Deposits In Silicon Valley Bank
Work-Bench • Wall Street Journal • March 13, 2023
3 AI Trends For Companies To Anticipate In 2023
Alkymi • Forbes • March 8, 2023
Socure Secures $95 Million Credit Facility With J.P. Morgan, Silicon Valley Bank and KeyBanc Capital Markets
Socure • Business Wire • March 8, 2023
Adam Wenchel, Arthur.ai | CUBE Conversation
Arthur • CUBE Conversation • March 2, 2023
Cloud Security Startup Wiz Raises $300M, The Largest New York Megaround In Months
Work-Bench • Crain’s New York Business • February 27, 2023
Inside Startup Battlefield: Making the Pitch Perfect
AppMap • TechCrunch • February 21, 2023
Can Your Startup Survive The Economic Downturn?
Work-Bench • TechCrunch • February 10, 2023
Enterprise Tech Sidesteps Dip In Startup Funding
Work-Bench • Crain’s New York Business • February 10, 2023
Q&A: Cockroach Labs, Authzed Stress The Importance Of Distributed SQL Databases
Cockroach Labs & Authzed • SiliconANGLE • February 8, 2023
Why More Startups Are Getting Compliant
Work-Bench • TechCrunch • February 8, 2023
Paul Valente: CEO and Co-Founder of VISO Trust
VISO Trust • Perkins Coie • February 3, 2023
New York Venture Seed Funding Fell In Fourth Quarter
Work-Bench • Wall Street Journal • January 31, 2023
100 Best Hybrid Places To Work 2023
RippleMatch • Built In • January 24, 2023
Disecting The 2022 Tech Reckoning With Jonathan Lehr
Work-Bench • The Big Bro Show • January 18, 2023
The Crystal Ball: VCs, PE Investors, And Tech Founders Predict M&A Activity For 2023
Work-Bench • Fortune • January 3, 2023
The State Of Patient Centricity In Biopharma
Courier Health • Courier Health Blog • January 2023