Work-Bench New York, New York, US
Work-Bench is a New York City-based enterprise venture capital firm that leads Seed rounds in enterprise software, SaaS, and infrastructure startups. The firm provides founders with go-to-market support, corporate engagement, and community to help scale enterprise deals.
Founded —
Type Venture capital 3 Fund IV 2025-05-12 2025-05-12 $160M USD160M raised seed enterprise fund; exactlegalfinalcloseday notsupplied. Currenthomepage preseed/seed, launchseed-exclusive wording retained.
Fund III 2021-08-04 2021-08-04 $100M USD100M raised. HistoricalUSD3-6Mseed/SeedII ROUND sizes notfirmchecks.
Fund II 2018-12-13 2018-12-13 $47M HistoricalUSD47M fund announced2018-12-13. Historical2024USD375MAUM separate/notmechanicallyaddedtoFundIV.
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$3M $2M – $5M Seattle, Washington $1M $250K – $3M New York City $1M $100K – $5M New York, New York $1M $250K – $3M New York, New York $1M $250K – $3M New York, New York $1M $250K – $3M New York, New York — — – —
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$6M 2025-12-11 AIR Platforms Work-Bench $6M 2025-12-11 AIR Platforms Work-Bench $6M 2025-12-11 AIR Platforms Work-Bench $50M 2025-04-17 Goodfire Lightspeed , Menlo Ventures , B Capital , South Park Commons , Wing Venture Capital , Work-Bench , Jessica Lin $9M 2025-01-22 Dryrun Security Work-Bench , Kelley Mak $7M 2024-11-21 Viso Trust Bain Capital , Sierra Ventures , Work-Bench , EnvisionX Capital , Allstate Strategic Ventures , Lytical Ventures , Mark Fernandes , Kelley Mak $7M 2024-08-15 Goodfire Lightspeed , Jessica Lin , Work-Bench $— 2024-07 Courier Health Work-Bench $5M 2024 Prequel Y Combinator , Operator Partners , NextView Ventures , Work-Bench , Script Capital , Stage 2 Capital $7M 2024 Viso Trust Bain Capital , Sierra Ventures , Work-Bench , EnvisionX Capital , Allstate Strategic Ventures , Lytical Ventures $3M 2022-12-13 Common Fate Work-Bench , Essence VC $— 2022-10-06 Alkymi Work-Bench $— 2022-09-27 Arthur AI Work-Bench $— 2022-07-28 Leapfin Work-Bench $15M 2022-06-22 CloudQuery boldstart ventures , Work-Bench , Shomik Ghosh , Kelley Mak $— 2022-02-08 ApertureData Root Ventures , Work-Bench $— 2022-01-18 Permiso Work-Bench $— 2021-11-11 CloudQuery boldstart ventures , Work-Bench $— 2021-09-23 Pronto Work-Bench $190M 2021-09-16 Spring Health Northzone , Work-Bench , Jessica Lin $— 2021-08-10 FireHydrant Work-Bench $3M 2021-04-21 Authzed Y Combinator , Amplify Partners , Work-Bench $24M 2021-04-20 Ripplematch Work-Bench , Jessica Lin $— 2020-12-09 Arthur AI Work-Bench $76M 2020-11-18 Spring Health Northzone , Work-Bench , Jessica Lin , Pär-Jörgen Pärson $100M 2020-10-06 Dialpad ICONIQ Capital , Work-Bench , Marc Andreessen , Jonathan Lehr $— 2020-05-20 FireHydrant Work-Bench $3M 2019-12-11 Arthur AI Work-Bench $6M 2019-09-05 Ripplematch Work-Bench , Jessica Lin $— 2019-07-30 Catalyst Accel , Work-Bench $— 2019-04-02 FireHydrant Work-Bench $— 2019 Cockroach Labs Benchmark , Work-Bench $— 2018-08-21 Semmle Accel , Work-Bench $50M 2018-07-17 Dialpad ICONIQ Capital , S32 , Scale Venture Partners , GV , Iconiq Capital, LLC , SoftBank Vision Fund , Amasia , Felicis , Section 32 , Work-Bench , Marc Andreessen , Jonathan Lehr $6M 2018-07-12 Spring Health Work-Bench , Jessica Lin $— 2017-08-09 Socure Accel , Work-Bench $10M 2017-06-23 Algorithmia Osage University Partners , Work-Bench $27M 2017-05-10 Cockroach Labs Peter Fenton , Work-Bench $5M 2016-12-21 Backtrace Work-Bench , Sunil Dhaliwal , Jonathan Lehr $— 2016-03-29 Cockroach Labs Work-Bench $— 2015 Cockroach Labs Work-Bench $— Unknown date Chamelio Work-Bench $— Unknown date SeeMetrics Work-Bench $— Unknown date AppMap Work-Bench $— Unknown date Courier Health Work-Bench $— Unknown date Streamdal Work-Bench $— Unknown date GovWell Work-Bench $— Unknown date Dialpad Work-Bench $— 2026-02-05 Flock AI Work-Bench $7M 2017-05-24 Merlon Intelligence DCVC , Work-Bench
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team@apexlogos.ai · 5 hours ago
Investment-fund research reviewed 2026-10-06. Publicly identified funds, dates, amounts and fundraising status are below. Undisclosed commitments remain unknown; this is not a complete register of private SPVs or parallel entities.
Funds and stages
| Fund / metric | Amount and status | Dated evidence and qualification |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Fund IV | **USD 160 million raised**, announced 2025-05-12; a raised fund rather than an unclosed target | [Official announcement](https://www.work-bench.com/post/announcing-work-bench-fund-iv-160m-to-back-seed-founders-with-bold-enterprise-visions ). Seed enterprise software, **USD 2–4 million checks**; check range is separate from fund size. Exact legal final-close date was not supplied. |
| Fund III / Fund 3 | **USD 100 million raised**, announced 2021-08-04 | [Official announcement](https://www.work-bench.com/post/announcing-our-100m-work-bench-fund-3 ). Historical strategy led USD 3–6 million seed/Seed II **rounds**, which should not automatically be recorded as Work-Bench check amounts. |
| Fund II | **USD 47 million**, announced 2018-12-13 | [Firm-authored Medium announcement](https://medium.com/work-bench/work-bench-announces-47m-fund-ii-to-help-enterprise-founders-sell-into-the-fortune-500-6e2ef56b1158 ). Historical fund, not current deployable capital. |
| AUM, historical | **USD 375 million AUM** as stated 2024-12-04 | [Official hiring post](https://www.work-bench.com/post/join-our-growing-team-as-our-head-of-growth ). Predates Fund IV and is not a current AUM figure. No reconciliation to flagship fund commitments provided. |
A search for Fund V/Fund 5 found no newer verified fund announcement in the sources checked. Fund IV is therefore **latest-known**, without claiming a complete legal fund inventory. Current homepage language includes **pre-seed and seed**; the 2025 Fund IV post describes an exclusive seed focus. Treat this as differing dates/strategy wording, preserve both sources, and confirm the present minimum maturity if updating Adex. Historical Series A/B participations below are transactions and follow-ons, not proof of a current late-stage entry mandate. [Homepage](https://www.work-bench.com/ ), accessed 2026-10-06.
Funds recorded in Adex after this review:
| Fund | Disclosed amount | Announcement / filing date |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Fund II | USD 47000000 | 2018-12-13 |
| Fund III | USD 100000000 | 2021-08-04 |
| Fund IV | USD 160000000 | 2025-05-12 | SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 5 hours ago
Match research 2026-10-06 / WorkBench / sha256:5ef0caa808207de6db4fb45534d9f31bb241b1608813dbc3e66ce78a9a213971 / part 2 of 2
Imported completed research. Baseline Adex/Signal statements describe prior state, not independent verification. Retain cited attribution, date, currency and classification caveats.
**No verified neurotech investment found in the sources checked.** Checked the exact-ID baseline, Signal firm/person profiles, official firm portfolio and investment posts, and searches combining Work-Bench with neurotech, neuroscience and brain-computer interfaces. This is a public-source search result, not proof that no such investment exists.
**Spring Health is a verified adjacent investment:** Work-Bench's **2018-07-12** post names its participation in a **USD 6 million raise**, alongside Rethink Impact, BBG Ventures and Partnership Fund for NYC. The company applies ML to clinical behavioral research and personalized mental-health treatment selection, rooted in Adam Chekroud's Yale research. It supplies mental-health care and prediction rather than a verified BCI, neural-sensing or neural-stimulation product. Keep it in **mental-health/clinical AI adjacency**, separately from direct neurotech. [Official firm investment announcement](https://www.work-bench.com/post/announcing-our-investment-in-spring-health ), 2018-07-12.
Courier Health is listed as a patient-engagement platform, not direct neurotech; likewise Goodfire's artificial neural-network interpretability does not make it a neuroscience investment. [Official portfolio](https://www.work-bench.com/portfolio ), accessed 2026-10-06.
## Conflicts, missing information and later Adex review
1. **AIR identity conflation and lead flag:** Snapshot records `AirEV`, `AIRPlatforms` and `Air` against the same USD 6.1 million credit-rating financing. The company-issued **2025-12-11** release identifies **AIR Platforms, Inc.**, an AI-powered credit-intelligence business, and explicitly calls **Work-Bench and Lerer Hippeau co-leads**. This does not establish an investment in the electric-aircraft company AIR/Air EV. Review entity matching, duplicate participations and the currently false lead flags; do not count this as aviation hardware. [PRNewswire](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/air-raises-6-1-million-to-modernize-private-credit-ratings-with-ai-bringing-daily-bias-free-risk-ratings-to-financial-markets-302638543.html ), 2025-12-11.
2. **Cockroach Labs chronology:** Snapshot includes 2015 and 2019 entries labeled seed from a secondary roundup. Stronger official evidence establishes Work-Bench's 2016 Series A-1 announcement and 2017 Series B participation. Do not silently reinterpret the earlier entries as verified rounds.
3. **Round versus investor amounts:** Snapshot frequently puts the total company round in the participation `amount` while leaving `roundAmount` null. Individual Work-Bench allocations were not verified; avoid storing round totals as checks.
4. **Weak attribution sources:** Goodfire and several other snapshot entries rely on Goldi profiles for unrelated named investors. Replace review evidence with direct company/firm announcements where available; Goodfire seed and Series A are verified above.
5. **Duplication and dates:** Snapshot has duplicate Viso Trust, CloudQuery and Courier Health leads; Courier's July 2024 entry cites a USD 50 million Series B article while another has no date. Its official firm writing index dates the Series B post to **2026-04-22**. Review original company announcement and separate rounds before correcting. [Official writing index](https://www.work-bench.com/research ), accessed 2026-10-06.
6. **Current financial details missing:** No current audited AUM, exact final-close legal dates, reserve policy, ownership targets, undisclosed fund vehicles, or individual investment allocations verified. Preserve the historical USD 375 million AUM date and do not mechanically add Fund IV to it.
7. **Signal limitations:** Firm page rendering was inconsistent; individual ranges may be self-entered or stale. NFX deep-tech/hardware list presence is weaker than the explicit enterprise-software mandate. Sector fit should be justified from actual companies and research, not directory tags.
No Adex/database changes were made. Every linked source was accessed on 2026-10-06; publication dates are stated above when available. Undated portfolio/homepage/Signal claims should be treated as access-date observations. SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 5 hours ago
Match research 2026-10-06 / WorkBench / sha256:5ef0caa808207de6db4fb45534d9f31bb241b1608813dbc3e66ce78a9a213971 / part 1 of 2
Imported completed research. Baseline Adex/Signal statements describe prior state, not independent verification. Retain cited attribution, date, currency and classification caveats.
# Work-Bench
- **Exact Adex ID:** `WorkBench`
- **Canonical Adex webpage:** https://adex.page/firms/WorkBench
- **Official website:** https://www.work-bench.com/
- **Research date:** 2026-10-06
- **Status:** complete for the requested public-source research; unresolved record issues are identified below.
Work-Bench is a New York enterprise software investor established in 2013. Its current website states that it leads pre-seed and seed rounds in applied AI and infrastructure software, with a New York emphasis but openness to founders elsewhere. The latest-known named fund verified here is **$160 million Fund IV**, announced as raised on 2025-05-12. Evidence supports research-intensive AI and sophisticated infrastructure exposure, especially Goodfire and Cockroach Labs; it does not establish a broad hardware or direct neurotechnology mandate. [Official homepage](https://www.work-bench.com/ ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06; [Fund IV announcement](https://www.work-bench.com/post/announcing-work-bench-fund-iv-160m-to-back-seed-founders-with-bold-enterprise-visions ), 2025-05-12.
## Starting evidence: Adex and NFX Signal
The saved exact-ID snapshot, `data/research/_sources/WorkBench.adex.json`, retrieved 2026-10-06 at 19:29:40 UTC, identifies Work-Bench as a NYC enterprise VC leading seed rounds in software, SaaS and infrastructure. It has no populated check-size fields and cites the official site, Signal and Goldi. Its source notes explain that inclusion on Signal's DeepTech Pre-Seed list can reflect historical affiliations and does not establish an exclusive deep-tech focus. The snapshot lists 46 investment participation entries, including duplicate company/round leads and questionable attribution sources; these are starting claims, not 46 independently verified investments.
[Signal firm page](https://signal.nfx.com/firms/work-bench ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, was opened directly: the first response exposed the firm/team profile, but repeat responses supplied only a short shell. Its search index showed New York location, Daniel Chesley as principal, a $1.5 million sweet spot and $100,000–$5 million range for that individual, plus Jonathan Lehr as general partner. These individual profile values should not override the dated firm mandate.
[Diego Oppenheimer's Signal profile](https://signal.nfx.com/investors/diego-oppenheimer_1 ), undated, directly opened 2026-10-06, names him Work-Bench venture partner and includes DeepTech seed/pre-seed rankings. Indexed values show $2–5 million range and $3 million sweet spot. Signal's sector rankings and investments on a person's profile may combine angel activity and prior affiliations. Do not assign every investment there to Work-Bench. In particular, being Algorithmia's former CEO does not itself prove a Work-Bench investment in any company he later advises.
## Funds and stages
| Fund / metric | Amount and status | Dated evidence and qualification |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Fund IV | **USD 160 million raised**, announced 2025-05-12; a raised fund rather than an unclosed target | [Official announcement](https://www.work-bench.com/post/announcing-work-bench-fund-iv-160m-to-back-seed-founders-with-bold-enterprise-visions ). Seed enterprise software, **USD 2–4 million checks**; check range is separate from fund size. Exact legal final-close date was not supplied. |
| Fund III / Fund 3 | **USD 100 million raised**, announced 2021-08-04 | [Official announcement](https://www.work-bench.com/post/announcing-our-100m-work-bench-fund-3 ). Historical strategy led USD 3–6 million seed/Seed II **rounds**, which should not automatically be recorded as Work-Bench check amounts. |
| Fund II | **USD 47 million**, announced 2018-12-13 | [Firm-authored Medium announcement](https://medium.com/work-bench/work-bench-announces-47m-fund-ii-to-help-enterprise-founders-sell-into-the-fortune-500-6e2ef56b1158 ). Historical fund, not current deployable capital. |
| AUM, historical | **USD 375 million AUM** as stated 2024-12-04 | [Official hiring post](https://www.work-bench.com/post/join-our-growing-team-as-our-head-of-growth ). Predates Fund IV and is not a current AUM figure. No reconciliation to flagship fund commitments provided. |
A search for Fund V/Fund 5 found no newer verified fund announcement in the sources checked. Fund IV is therefore **latest-known**, without claiming a complete legal fund inventory. Current homepage language includes **pre-seed and seed**; the 2025 Fund IV post describes an exclusive seed focus. Treat this as differing dates/strategy wording, preserve both sources, and confirm the present minimum maturity if updating Adex. Historical Series A/B participations below are transactions and follow-ons, not proof of a current late-stage entry mandate. [Homepage](https://www.work-bench.com/ ), accessed 2026-10-06.
## Named deep-tech and technically substantial investments
Deep-tech classification below is an analytical assessment of technology, not a blanket classification of all B2B software. All amounts are **total company rounds**, not Work-Bench's individual contribution.
| Company | Verified firm attribution and timing | Technology rationale and limits |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Goodfire** | USD **7 million seed**, company-issued announcement 2024-08-15, led by Lightspeed with Work-Bench participating: [Business Wire release](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240815380275/en/Goodfire-Raises-%247M-to-Break-Open-the-Black-Box-of-Generative-AI-Models ). USD **50 million Series A**, 2025-04-17, led by Menlo with Work-Bench explicitly participating: [Goodfire official announcement](https://www.goodfire.com/blog/announcing-our-50m-series-a ). | Strong research-intensive AI example: mechanistic interpretability, sparse autoencoders and tools to inspect/steer artificial neural-network internals. These artificial neurons are **not biological neurotechnology**. |
| **Cockroach Labs** | Work-Bench announced entry in the **Series A-1** on **2016-03-29**, alongside Index, Benchmark, GV and FirstMark: [official investment post](https://www.work-bench.com/post/announcing-our-investment-in-cockroach-labs ). Company confirms Work-Bench among investors in its **USD 27 million Series B**, raised May 2017, in a **2017-12-21** retrospective: [Cockroach Labs](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/end-of-year/ ). | Distributed SQL database requiring resilient, globally scalable transactional infrastructure. This is substantial systems engineering; its inclusion as deep tech depends on whether the review taxonomy includes infrastructure software. No physical-science/hardware exposure is implied. |
| **Arthur / Arthur AI** | **USD 3.3 million seed**, official Work-Bench announcement **2019-12-11**, investing with Index and Homebrew: [firm announcement](https://www.work-bench.com/post/announcing-our-investment-in-arthur ). | ML explainability, performance monitoring and control of complex models. Technical AI infrastructure, with a more conditional deep-tech classification than frontier interpretability research. Firm post describes the product and attribution directly. |
| **Semmle** | Official current portfolio identifies Semmle as a Work-Bench company, exited to GitHub: [portfolio](https://www.work-bench.com/portfolio ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. | Code analysis for security vulnerabilities; potentially advanced program-analysis technology. Exact entry date, round and research/IP characterization were not established here. The snapshot's 2018 USD 21 million Series B attribution remains a lead rather than a newly verified transaction. |
Goodfire subsequently announced **USD 150 million Series B** on **2026-02-05**, led by B Capital. Work-Bench is not explicitly listed in that announcement's named participant group; its continued portfolio relationship is not evidence of participating in the Series B. [Company-issued PRNewswire release](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-lab-goodfire-raises-150m-at-1-25b-valuation-to-design-models-with-interpretability-302680120.html ), 2026-02-05.
The official portfolio also names CoreOS, Backtrace, Socure, Tamr and other AI/infrastructure companies. These are corroborated portfolio relationships, not an invitation to label ordinary SaaS or every AI application deep tech. This report verifies selected relevant examples, not the full transaction history. [Portfolio](https://www.work-bench.com/portfolio ), accessed 2026-10-06.
## Neurotech and adjacent mental health SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 22 days ago
MATCH 
Goodfire$50M · 2025-04-17
Spring Health$190M · 2021-09-16
Ripplematch$24M · 2021-04-20
Dryrun Security$9M · 2025-01-22
Viso Trust$7M · 2024-11-21
CloudQuery$15M · 2022-06-22
Bain Capital
boldstart ventures
Northzone
Sierra Ventures
Amplify Partners
Authzed$3M · 2021-04-21
Benchmark
Cockroach Labs$— · 2019
DCVC
Essence VC
Common Fate$3M · 2022-12-13
Dialpad$50M · 2018-07-17
Mark Fernandes
Menlo Ventures
Prequel$5M · 2024
Osage University Partners
Algorithmia$10M · 2017-06-23
Pär-Jörgen Pärson
Peter Fenton
Root Ventures
ApertureData$— · 2022-02-08
Section 32
Shomik Ghosh
Sunil Dhaliwal
Backtrace$5M · 2016-12-21
Wing Venture Capital
