Tola Capital

Our recent executive networking mixer with Shawn K. and the GIT100?community in Palo Alto connected enterprise software leaders for thought-provoking conversations on:? ? 1?? AI and the future of the developer ecosystem: how can we empower developers and focus on resource efficiency? ? 2?? IT applications in the enterprise: how can we wrap our heads around the impact of AI on the workforce and SaaS business models? This is critical as enterprises prioritize IT investments. ? A huge thank you to everyone who attended. We were honored to feature guest speakers Deepa Gopinath, SVP & Deputy CIO at Databricks and Adam Seligman, VP of Developer Experience at Amazon Web Services (AWS) at the event.? ? Looking forward to continuing these conversations in 2025.

?? Product launch ???? ? We’re excited to announce version 2.0 of our global AI Tracker – a free, interactive knowledge hub for tracking AI Governance developments worldwide. With almost 500 AI laws in progress around the world, 200 of which are at the federal level in the U.S., understanding how these laws impact your business is becoming an increasing challenge. This new version of AI Tracker simplifies this challenge with Atlas, a powerful feature that provides a graphical world map that highlights AI activities across major regions at a glance. It offers customizable filters to focus on what matters most—like specific legislation or AI incidents by region—and real-time alerts to track events as they unfold. ? Find out more about how you can leverage the Tracker here: https://lnkd.in/e9cpXi63 #AIGovernance #AIPolicy #AIIncident #AIMonitor #AITracker?#ResponsibleAI

Magnet is Tola’s distinguished community of people, ideas, and resources in enterprise and AI software. Our portfolio companies are part of Magnet, and this month’s Magnet Minute ???highlights two exciting job opportunities at Reliant AI and Arcus. Please take a minute to share with a sales leader or engineer who wants to make an impact at an AI-native early-stage startup. Links to learn more are in the comments!

At Tola, we’re excited about the rapid adoption of #generativeAI tools for coding. With tools like Cursor, V0, and GitHub Copilot, AI is disrupting software development, from code design to deployment. ? A new software development lifecycle is emerging, empowering the developer and new persona: the Software Composer.? ? In the first in a series of blogs (link in comments), Tola Partner Akshay Bhushan, Tola Advisor Greg Ceccarelli (ex-CPO at Pluralsight) and Jake Levirne (ex-Head of Product at Docker, Inc, Founder at SpecStory) share perspectives on the powers Software Composers have in our new era of customized and personalized software.? ? After reading our blog, feel free to share your insights about the future of coding with us in the comments.

?? Holistic AI Named a Cool Vendor for AI Security by Gartner? In the #CoolVendors for AI Security report, Gartner points out that there are frameworks and guidelines available, such as the AI trust, risk, and security management (AI TRiSM), which provides functional areas for mitigating AI and security risks. “We are honored that Holistic AI, with our purpose-built AI governance platform, has been recognized by Gartner as a ‘Cool Vendor,’” says Emre Kazim, Co-CEO of Holistic AI. “The reality is that misalignment between teams on how to best measure, mitigate, and manage AI risks often results in bottlenecks and delays, stalling projects before they even launch. Conversely, rushing AI deployments without proper safeguards can expose organizations to severe operational breakdowns, security vulnerabilities, reputational damage, and financial losses. Our goal is to empower organizations to realize AI’s full potential, safely and at scale.” ? Download here: https://lnkd.in/eQFwMAcC #AISecurity #AIGovernance #AITRISM #ResponsibleAI #Gartner #AIAudit #RiskManagement #AICompliance #CoolVendor

Introducing?Magnet?Minute???? Magnet?is Tola’s community of startup founders and operators, software buyers and builders, entrepreneurial researchers, and technology executives.?Magnet is?focused on attracting ambitious ideas and energizing connections in enterprise and AI software.? ? We’re enthused to highlight what’s going on in the community – take a?minute?to check out recent security announcements from Pulumi, Zilla Security, and Holistic AI. Links to learn more are in the comments! ? #CybersecurityAwarenessMonth

?? Congratulations Nooks! This week, Nooks launched their #AI Sales Assistant Platform (ASAP) and announced their $43M Series B led by Kleiner Perkins. Tola is excited to continue backing Dan L., Rohan Suri and Nikhil Cheerla and the Nooks team.? ? Nooks believes the future of inside sales is?human reps working with AI assistants.?Nooks ASAP's Dialing, Coaching, and Prospecting Assistants are tightly coupled so reps don’t need to think about fragmented tool stacks and they can focus on the thing that matters – the prospect. Learn more here:?https://lnkd.in/e5M7cbBV

We’re excited about agentic #automation in enterprise #security teams.? Tola Partner Akshay Bhushan?and Tola Advisor Myke Lyons, CISO at Cribl, authored a piece titled Scaling Security in the Enterprise with #AI. Check out the specific opportunities for startups and security leaders that they delineate in the piece (link in comments). They are seeing rapid adoption of new vendors relative to incumbents in these areas: Vulnerability Management, SOC Automation, Application Security, and Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC).?? Tola has a portfolio of security investments in Crogl, Inc., TrustCloud, Palosade, Zilla Security, and Realm Labs. Looking forward to continued discussion about agentic automation in enterprise security teams within our CISO & Security Leaders network, part of our community called Magnet! #CyberSecurityAwarenessMonth

This week in Seattle, Tola’s Founder and Managing Director, Sheila Gulati, joined a panel with Greg Gottesman (Pioneer Square Labs), Yifan Zhang (AI2 Incubator), and Chris Picardo (Madrona) on Fundraising in the Age of Gen AI. The event was part of the kickoff week for AWS Startups Generative AI Accelerator?program of 80 global startups:?https://lnkd.in/dHYCV2uv. Sheila shared insights on Tola investing in #generativeAI startups in global markets (e.g. Scandinavia, Germany, the UK and the US) and few areas Tola is excited about at AI application layers in the enterprise including: #data infrastructure and tooling, #AI explainability, and securing AI.

?? We’ve got 10/2 pinned for AI Realized. Looking forward to this conference in San Francisco next week. The agenda includes panels on overcoming #security, #data and organization challenges when deploying #AI to production. And, there will be discussion on real AI use cases in financial services, media, and healthcare. Thank you David Yakobovitch and Christina Ellwood for organizing this event focused on enterprise AI deployment. ??? Use code TOLA!50 for $50 off your ticket.