Benchmark invests in and works alongside entrepreneurs building startups into transformational companies. They focus on early-stage venture investing in mobile, marketplaces, social, and infrastructure and enterprise software. Founded in 1995, the firm has offices in Woodside and San Francisco, California. The firm has been recognized for its commitment to open source and is noted for creating the first equal ownership and compensation structure for its partners. The five equal general partners who take board seats and a hands-on approach to every entrepreneur and company they back, with no junior investment staff. Current general partners are Chetan Puttagunta, Sarah Tavel, Victor Lazarte, Peter Fenton, and Eric Vishria. Benchmark has had 37 exits since beginning of 2011; 14 IPOs and 23 M&As representing a total market value of more than $60 billion. Benchmark’s current portfolio of early-stage venture investments includes private market leaders such as Uber, Snapchat, Tinder, Stitch Fix, Elastic and Cyanogen; recent IPOs and acquisitions such as Twitter, Instagram, Yelp, League of Legends, Jasper, OpenTable, New Relic, Hortonworks, Amplitude, Confluent, GrubHub, Zendesk and Zillow; and franchise companies from Juniper to eBay to Red Hat.

Benchmark

Sketch

Sketch is building a platform to empower designers to share and collaborate on their designs and work better, together. The company is based in Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands.

Sketch is a design tool used by professionals for creating, prototyping, and collaborating on user interface (UI) designs. It offers a set of features, including improved web notifications, the ability to add comments to prototypes, scroll areas, a command bar for quick access to tools and actions, and enhanced sharing options. Sketch's design process allows users to create and design, collaborate with others in real-time, build interactive prototypes, and seamlessly hand off designs to stakeholders and developers. The tool is available as a Mac app, a web app, and an iPhone/iPad app. With a focus on vector editing, Boolean operations, smart guides, color management, and reusable design elements, Sketch is an industry-standard for UI design and prototyping, offering a user-friendly and adaptable workflow for designers of all skill levels.

The tools that power remote work are define the next generation of enterprise software.

Remote Work Tools

Layoffs at Sketch

Sketch is a design tool used by professionals for creating, prototyping, and collaborating on user interface (UI) designs. It offers a set of features, including improved web notifications, the ability to add comments to prototypes, scroll areas, a command bar for quick access to tools and actions, and enhanced sharing options. Sketch's design process allows users to create and design, collaborate with others in real-time, build interactive prototypes, and seamlessly hand off designs to stakeholders and developers. The tool is available as a Mac app, a web app, and an iPhone/iPad app. With a focus on vector editing, Boolean operations, smart guides, color management, and reusable design elements, Sketch is an industry-standard for UI design and prototyping, offering a user-friendly and adaptable workflow for designers of all skill levels.Funding and financialsIn March 2019, Sketch raised USD 20 million in a Series A funding round led by Benchmark. The funding was primarily used by Sketch to further develop and expand its design tools platform.

Hive is a productivity platform for project management and collaboration. The platform provides automated workflows, project planning layouts, and action templates to assign and keep track of project tasks. Hive focuses on improving task execution with instant feedback cycles for editing and approvals. Additional features include note taking (Hive Note), instant messaging, online meetings, and file sharing.Hive offers a variety of ways for teams to organize their projects, including Gantt charts, Kanban boards, tables, and calendars, with updates made in one view automatically reflected in all others. The platform allows team members to create action cards with files, sub-actions, dependencies, and comments to stay on top of their objectives, and have access to a personal to-do list that compiles all assigned tasks from all projects. Managers can use Hive to assign approvals, share proofs, provide feedback, and collect project forms from clients and customers. Hive also uses AI and machine learning to provide insights on team productivity and identify potential risks, and to optimize resource allocation and client billing.Key customers and partnershipsThe company’s customer base includes Google, Toyota, Comcast, and Starbucks. Hive offers integrations with over 1,000 SaaS platforms, including Asana, Trello, Basecamp, and Smartsheet, allowing users to import tasks from these platforms.Funding and financialsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5208">August 2021</a>, Hive raised USD 10 million in a funding round led by Rembrandt Venture Partners with participation from Zoom, and existing investors Tribeca Venture Partners and Angelpad. Hive is one of the first startups to receive an investment from Zoom’s “Zoom Apps Fund” (a USD 100 million global venture fund). The fresh funds were allocated toward platform development.&nbsp;

Hive

Grain’s software allows users to record, highlight, transcribe, and share online meeting content from tools such as Zoom in an effective manner. It automatically records and transcribes meetings, allowing users to create shareable video clips from highlighted transcript sections. Grain leverages AI to generate customizable meeting notes and answer questions about the transcript. It supports coaching and collaboration through comments and training content creation. The platform offers deal analytics and insights, tracking key account activities and integrating with tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier, and Slack. &nbsp;The company’s products focus on distributed teams, sales, product and user research, and hiring teams.In April 2022, the company acquired Ping Pong, a video messaging platform.Funding and financialsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9759">April 2022</a>, Grain raised USD 16 million in Series A funding led by Tiger Global Management. The funds were raised to expand operations and develop its ​​video meeting system of record for content, which allows employees to collaborate around insights, topics, relationships, or teams.

Grain

Air is a creative operations platform designed for creative teams to streamline their workflows and collaborate more effectively. It offers a comprehensive solution that goes beyond basic cloud storage systems, catering specifically to the needs of the creative process. Air allows users to collect content, approve assets, share versions for feedback, and organize their work seamlessly, eliminating the need for additional organizational efforts.Air provides a centralized hub for content collaboration, approval, and versioning. Air's technology streamlines various aspects of the creative workflow, including content collection, asset approval, version control, and feedback sharing. Unlike traditional cloud storage solutions, Air's platform is tailored to the specific requirements of creative teams, enabling them to work more efficiently and effectively.Key customers and PartnershipsThe company’s customer base includes notable firms such as Native, Together, Spindrift, and Univision.&nbsp;Funding and financialsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8139">January 2022</a>, Air raised USD 10 million in an “Operator Round” led by Headline with participation from Tiger Global, Lere Hippeau, and 50+ strategic founders and marketing executives including Peter Rahal (Co-Founder, RXBAR), Kipp Bodnar (CMO, HubSpot), and Joe Thomas (CEO, Loom), valuing the company at USD 110 million. The funds were used to accelerate Air’s go-to-market activities and growth.

Acapela was co-founded by Roland Grenke, founder of Dubsmash, a video sharing social media app. Acapela facilitates online meetings without real-time interaction between participants; instead, members contribute to meetings over time.Acapela provides voice and video messages integrated with popular productivity tools such as Asana, Google Workspace, Notion, and Atlassian. Additionally, meetings will generate tasks and meeting summaries automatically. The company identified distributed tech teams as its initial target segment and plans to shift focus toward small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and larger enterprises eventually. The product is currently in invite-only beta.In October 2020, the company exited stealth mode with a USD 3 million seed funding round led by Visionaries Club. The round included Entrepreneur First and other notable individual investors, such as Christian Reber (founder of presentation software Pitch) and Taavet Hinrikus (founder of online money transfer service TransferWise).

Acapela

iObeya is a cloud-based enterprise visual management platform that enables organizations to digitize their Lean, Agile, and Industry 4.0 practices. The platform provides virtual "Oobeyas" (Japanese for "big room"), which are digital collaborative workspaces where teams can align, synchronize, and visualize their work using digital boards, sticky notes, and other visual tools. iObeya's platform allows teams to recreate the in-person experience of paper-based visual management practices with real-time collaboration, enhancing team efficiency, creativity, and problem-solving.iObeya's technology supports a wide range of enterprise use cases, including industrial product lifecycle management, manufacturing operational excellence, product development, and continuous improvement for business performance and agility. It integrates with various systems like ERP, MES, BI, and Application lifecycle Management (ALM) tools such as Atlassian Jira and Microsoft Azure DevOps Server.Key customers and partnershipsiObeya's customer base includes global enterprises such as Airbus, Thales, Volvo, Philips, Cartier, Axa, Eli Lilly and Company, Western Digital, General Electric, Kimberly-Clark, Danaher, and Sanofi.Funding and FinancialsIn July 2020, iObeya raised USD 17 million in a series A funding round led by Red River West with participation from Atlantic Bridge Capital and Fortino Capital Partners. The funds were allocated to develop its platform further and accelerate the company’s expansion in the US.

iObeya

Platforms that provide virtual workspaces using spatial technology to combine a variety of productivity and collaboration tools in a single space.

Platforms that provide standalone presentation software, prototyping and web development software, templates, and design workspaces.

Platforms that facilitate task delegation and tracking with board, timeline, and kanban style views.

Platforms that provide standalone video communication tools and complementary products such as interactive interfaces, presentation features, and transcription software.

Platforms that offer chat and email-based collaborative tools.

Solutions in this industry hub are predominantly offered under a B2B SaaS model

Some solutions in the virtual office and video conferencing segments are based on AR/VR

Facilitates hybrid workforces by offering tools for employees to collaborate regardless of location

Meeting transcription and note-taking apps, design, and project management tools use AI/ML for product development

Sketch

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