15 enterprise tech startups poised to come out stronger from the COVID-19 crash, according to the VCs that invested in them — including John Chambers and Sapphire Ventures
Funding: $72 million
Top Investors: Dell Technologies Capital, TPG Growth
Recommended by: Scott Darling, Dell Technologies Capital (investor)
What it does: Noodle.ai offers AI-as-a-service to help businesses improve their operations, particularly their supply chains. For example, as the pandemic caused disruptions in the economy, the San Francisco-based startup's tech allowed its clients to quickly handle supply chain issues.
"Supply chains were gyrating all over the place and having a machine learning algorithm that can help people manage supply chains, manage queues, and that sort of thing is really critical," Dell's Darling told Business Insider.
Funding: $127 million
Top Investors: Dell Technologies Capital, Globespan Capital Partners
Recommended by: Scott Darling, Dell Technologies Capital (investor)
What it does: Nantero uses carbon nanotubes as an alternative to typical semiconductor chips to store and deliver memory faster and with greater reliability.
"[Nantero] will fundamentally alter the industry," Dell's Darling said. "It will change the entire dynamics of what memory hierarchies look like and how memory is used."
As the continued expansion of the cloud and the rise of data-intensive technologies like artificial intelligence increase the need for better storage, the Woburn, Massachusetts tech company will benefit, he believes.
Funding: $67 million
Top Investors: JC2 Ventures, March Capital Partners
Recommended by: John Chambers, JC2 Ventures (investor)
What it does: Uniphore uses voice AI to help businesses improve customer calls and relationships. Founded in India in 2008, the startup moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley late last year.
"We have now truly hit an inflection point," CEO Umesh Sachdev told Business Insider at the time. "We're growing faster and faster each year. When that's happening, you just know you hit a rising tide. You are at the right place at the right time."
Like other startups, Uniphore is feeling the effects of the COVID-19 downturn. But Chambers, who has become a mentor to Sachdev, says that he's been impressed with his leadership during the downturn. He expects Uniphore to emerge from the crisis as a major player in AI, thanks to its "very good strategy" and ability to execute.
Funding: $234.1 million
Top Investors: Sapphire Ventures, Insight Partners
Recommended by: Jai Das, Sapphire Ventures (investor)
What it does: The shift to remote work is leading to a growing need for tools that make it easier for teams to collaborate.
Sapphire Ventures President Jai Das said collaboration startups such as Monday.com are poised to gain traction because of that trend.
"You can't really just have hallway conversations anymore," he said, which makes online collaboration platforms even more valuable for businesses adapting to the new normal of remote work.
Funding: $278 million
Top Investors: Lightspeed Ventures, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Recommended by: John Chambers, JC2 Ventures (investor)
What it does: Pensando, which came out of stealth mode late last year, is taking aim at what cofounder Chambers says will be the next big trend in the cloud: edge computing. That's the technology that gives cloud-connected devices the ability to access on-board computing power to perform tasks faster.
This is critical in markets like manufacturing or autonomous driving, where there's not always time to wait for a response from a cloud server.
Chambers, who is Pensando's chairman, believes the company is well-positioned to catch that wave: "There's opportunity for a new leader in this area," he said.
The startup is led by four executives and engineers who worked under Chambers at Cisco: Mario Mazzola, Luca Cafiero, Prem Jain, and Soni Jiandani.
Funding: $460 million
Top Investors: Sequoia, Dell Technologies Capital
Recommended by: Scott Darling, Dell Technologies Capital (investor)
What it does: The rise of AI has led to a greater need for processors that can handle the massive computing requirements of data-hungry systems.
While tech giants like Intel and Nvidia are scrambling to meet that need, a crop of AI chip startups has popped up too, including Graphcore.
"They may fundamentally redefine what the silicon looks like for machine learning," Darling said.
Funding: $105 million
Top Investors: Sapphire Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, ICONIQ Capital
Recommended by: Jai Das, Sapphire Ventures (investor)
What it does: Moveworks is another hot AI startup that was growing rapidly before the COVID-19 crisis hit. The Mountain View, California-based company helps businesses automate their tech support.
Sapphire's Das expects Moveworks to continue doing well in the crisis as businesses adapt to the needs of a remote workforce, like network glitches and log-in problems.
"People are working from home, and the number of IT tickets has gone through the roof," he said. "[Moveworks' technology] automatically understands the message, interprets it, and actually goes in and fixes that problem for you."
Funding: $260 million
Top Investors: JC2 Partners, March Capital Partners, Telstra Ventures, John Doerr
Recommended by: John Chambers, JC2 Ventures (investor)
What it does: ASAPP is another startup that uses AI to help businesses improve customer relationships, including through call center operations.
"It's in the right sweet spot of a very hot technology with major new business models," Chambers said. It's notable, he adds, that the company is attracting top talent: The company has 55 PhDs in artificial intelligence and machine learning, including many recent MIT grads, Chambers said.
Funding: $71 million
Top Investors: Accel, Thrive Capital
Recommended by: Ben Fletcher, Accel (investor)
What it does: Guru is a collaboration and knowledge management software that makes it easier to access information, documents, and other files that may be stored in different programs and platforms.
The Philadelphia startup is poised to gain more traction in the world of remote work, Accel partner Ben Fletcher said.
"When you're in an office environment, you can go and tap the senior person on the shoulder and say, 'Hey, how do I do this?' or 'Where do I find this?'" he told Business Insider.
Not right now.
"[Guru has] enabled all of that to happen within Slack — or within the environments where you work — and will pop up that information," he said.
Funding: $6 million
Top Investor: Accel
Recommended by: Ben Fletcher, Accel (investor)
What it does: As the coronavirus crisis has forced many companies to move their events online, tools to make virtual get-togethers more engaging are in more demand than ever.
Hopin, a London-based online events platform, launched last year because of the rising popularity of webinars and other large-scale online events.
Its timing now feels prescient: Hopin is poised for growth because of the global pivot to remote work, Accel's Fletcher said.
"They had a great vision: There was a lot going on online with the shift to webinars," he said. "But now they're taking it a step further as companies are looking to accelerate their online and digital presence."
Funding: $118 million
Top Investors: Dell Technologies Capital, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Highland Capital Partners
Recommended by: Scott Darling, Dell Technologies Capital (investor)
What it does: Xometry is a 3D printing and manufacturing company that helps small manufacturers connect with customers more easily than they ever could before.
Dell's Darling used the example of a scientist needing replace a broken part in their laboratory equipment to show the company's value: "I can just literally go on to the Xometry website and have a part shipped to me with a very quick turnaround," he said.
The Maryland-based company has played a key role in manufacturing some of the supplies needed in the fight against COVID-19, he added, by producing "some of the critical things that are in short supply like ventilators, masks and face shields."
Funding: $15.2 million
Top Investors: Accel, Blackbird Ventures, New Ground Ventures
Recommended by: Ben Fletcher, Accel (investor)
What it does: Process Street is a workflow management platform that helps customers set up specific business operations, including HR processes and project collaboration.
Accel's Fletcherr said the startup's technology is ideal for businesses looking to make their employees more productive or streamline their workflows.
Founded in 2014, Process Street has a main office in San Francisco but has always been a mostly-remote organization, even before the outbreak.
"They've definitely been able to make this transition very seamlessly," Fletcher said.
Funding: $60.6 million
Top Investors: Accel, First Mark
Recommended by: Ben Fletcher, Accel (investor)
What it does: Toronto-based Ada is an AI-powered chatbot platform that automates the process of signing up new customers and providing customer support.
Accel's Fletcher cites the company's leadership, growing client list (which includes Zoom), and a growing need to automate customer service as reasons why Ada will come out of the crisis stronger.
"All those things are leading to them to just accelerate through what's happening here," Fletcher said.
Funding: $74.9 million
Top Investor: Accel
Recommended by: Ben Fletcher, Accel (investor)
What it does: Webflow is a website creation and development platform that makes it easier (and cheaper) for businesses to set up and manager their sites.
The company's technology is based on the "no-code" principle, which seeks to make software development more accessible to people with no formal computer programming skills.
"When you give normal people access to technology, entire businesses can be created," CEO and cofounder Sergie Magdalin told Business Insider in a 2018 interview. "I can imagine a high school student creating a new site like Airbnb or Twitter on a no-code platform."
Accel's Fletcher said the company is trying to "democratize" front-end development.
Funding: $80 million
Top Investors: Dell Technologies Capital, ICONIQ Capital
Recommended by: Scott Darling, Dell Technologies Capital (investor)
What it does: Headspin is a cloud platform that makes it easier for businesses and developers to test and track the performance of their mobile apps.
Headspin's technology has become even more valuable in the era of remote work, Dell's Darling said.
"Trying to understand how the networks are performing at the end-user level is critical," he said. "And with everything changing, it's really hard to manage, so they have done very well."