Perplexity ARR at $50M, Wiz project to $1B ARR in 2025
Bessemer, Index, and a16z alum launch a new $350M VC firm
Chemistry, a new venture capital firm, has raised $350 million for its debut fund.
Founded by Mark Goldberg (formerly of Index Ventures), Kristina Shen (previously a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz), and Ethan Kurzweil (formerly with Bessemer), the trio officially launched the fund today.
The fund, which was twice oversubscribed, will focus primarily on early-stage startups, particularly Series A investments, with some involvement in seed rounds.
Key areas of interest include fintech, infrastructure, developer tools, and workplace software. Each partner expects to make two to three investments annually.
The founding partners bring extensive experience, here is what they said in a blog post:
The idea for Chemistry started with a question – what would a venture firm look like if its success was fully aligned with its founders’ success? For months, we workshopped the answer. It would bring together experienced GPs from top venture firms with complementary networks and investment styles. It would out-hustle the legacy firms that have grown distracted by scale. It would be led by a lean team that brings founder energy and clean slates to the office every day.
This answer felt more and more like the blueprint for a new firm. As long-time friends who had spent countless hours working side-by-side on deals and in boardrooms, we knew we’d make a great team. We’ve always been aligned - not just on our vision, but our values as well. We’ve seen each other go all-in for founders, and how that approach impacted our portfolio companies. As our working session moved from nights and weekends to an always-on WhatsApp thread, the firm became inevitable. We named it “Chemistry,” a word we consistently used to describe the connection we shared with each other and with the founders we back.
At Chemistry, we will make a select number of investments, bringing our cumulative expertise and attention to each one. All three of us will actively support each investment. We are the portfolio services team, working in the trenches with our founders.
We’ve collectively led investments in over a dozen unicorns at the early stage, including PagerDuty, Intercom, Persona, Twitch, and Pave. We’ve served on over 50 boards, and led nearly 100 investments. We’ve seen firsthand what happens when the right team clicks at the right moment - as it did for us.
Plus, many startups reached a new milestone in their ARR, here are 6 startups I tracked recently:
1. Perplexity ARR at $50M, from $10M 6 months ago
Perplexity AI, a burgeoning player in the artificial intelligence sector, is currently in advanced discussions to secure approximately $500 million in funding. This move is expected to more than double its valuation to around $8 billion.
Perplexity has demonstrated remarkable revenue growth, with annualized revenue rising from $10 million in March to about $50 million currently.
Perplexity AI emerged in 2022, founded by a quartet of visionary engineers: Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski, it operates as an AI-powered search engine that leverages Natural language processing to deliver precise answers to user queries.
2. Sitecore Surpasses $500M in ARR
Sitecore has established itself as a global leader in digital experience software, particularly recognized for its innovative solutions in content management and digital experience platforms.
Sitecore's impressive client roster, which includes over 3,000 enterprises such as L'Oréal and United Airlines, underscores its position as a leader in the digital experience space.
Sitecore's recent achievement of surpassing $500 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) is a landmark moment in its growth trajectory, reflecting the company's robust market presence and the increasing demand for its innovative digital experience solutions.
3. Torq ARR at $24M, 3x yoy
Torq.io is an AI-first security hyperautomation company that offers a no-code automation platform to enhance security operations. It unifies and automates security infrastructure, providing unparalleled protection and productivity.
Torq's offerings include features such as AI-driven alert prioritization, automated workflows, and rapid response capabilities to security threats, which collectively aim to improve productivity and reduce the complexity associated with traditional Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) systems.
They have more than 150 direct enterprise customers, its ARR has eclipsed $24 million, and are projecting $100 million ARR by the fiscal year 2026.
4. HeyReach ARR at $2M, grown 20x last year
HeyReach is a LinkedIn automation tool designed primarily for agencies and sales teams, enabling them to scale their outreach efforts effectively.
It allows users to manage multiple LinkedIn accounts simultaneously, facilitating the sending of unlimited connection requests and messages while adhering to LinkedIn's usage limits.
HeyReach executes 60,000,000 LinkedIn actions per month, and the user base grows 31.3% MoM, on average. They have grown 20x in the last 365 days. Tripled in the last 6 months, And added $1M in the last 4 months.
5. Skio ARR at $11M and profitable
Skio is a subscription management software designed for brands using Shopify. It helps businesses streamline their subscription offerings, making it easy to migrate from other platforms like ReCharge.
Skio boasts features such as a 72% increase in conversions with 1-click options and a 60% reduction in customer tickets through passwordless login. Trusted by brands like Liquid IV and Milk Bar, Skio has achieved over $10M in ARR within three years. Now reached $11M.
One of the standout features of Skio is its fully automated billing and renewal processes, which significantly streamline operations for merchants.
6. Wiz ARR projected to be $1B in 2025
Wiz is a comprehensive cloud security platform designed to protect modern cloud environments. It offers prevention and response capabilities, enabling seamless collaboration between security and development teams.
Wiz's rapid ascent in the cybersecurity landscape is marked by its impressive achievement of reaching $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) within just 18 months of its inception.
It hit $500 million in annual recurring revenue while Google sought a $23B acquisition in July, now it plans to double that in 2025 to $1 billion.