Morgan Chittum here. For decades, enterprise software giants like Salesforce have powered the workflows that keep the world’s biggest businesses running. Rox cofounder Ishan Mukherjee is betting on a future that no longer needs them.
The AI sales startup has raised $100 million in Series B funding at a $1.3 billion valuation, Rox exclusively told Fortune. General Catalyst and March Capital co-led the round, with Sequoia and GV returning and Prosperity7 joining as a new investor.
The pitch: Customer relationship management software shouldn’t just store information. It should put it to work. With Rox, AI agents research customer accounts, recommend who to prioritize, and prepare outreach for clients. Basically, it gives salespeople less administrative work and more time with clients.
Mukherjee’s conviction comes from experience. Before Rox, he started Pixie Labs, which New Relic acquired for roughly $150 million in 2020, and became New Relic’s chief growth officer.
“While running a public company through COVID, I deeply understood that every business relies on Salesforce specifically and their CRM to run their business. That was not the futureproof approach as AI was about to hit scale,” Mukherjee said.
“There are going to be autonomous agents that do customer-facing commercial work across large parts of the economy, not just tech companies,” he added. “And do we think Salesforce is the right partner to help CEOs in the C-suite to actually transform their businesses? I came out of an experience where it was not true.”
He also saw an opening as massive companies like Nvidia and Intel moved customer data out of Salesforce and into their own environments. “What that means is the world’s largest in-app application company, which is Salesforce, was becoming less of a moat, less entrenched,” Mukherjee added.
But how do they plan to take on Salesforce, a company with a $172 billion market cap? Mukherjee pointed to the founding team’s experience developing cutting edge tech. Rox’s cofounders include Shriram Sridharan, a founding member of AWS’s Amazon Aurora database service; former Google employee Diogo Ribeiro; and Stanford AI Lab professor Christopher Ré. Mukherjee, himself, was a product lead for Apple’s Siri Knowledge Graph.
That was a key reason General Catalyst invested pre-product, and pre-revenue, back in 2024, partner Marc Bhargava said, describing Rox as “a talent magnet.”
But talent alone won’t unseat an enterprise software behemoth: “For a long time there’s been a graveyard of companies that said ‘I’m taking on ServiceNow or Workday. I’m taking on Salesforce,’” Bhargava told Fortune. Sticky customer relationships and access to capital have kept those incumbents in control, he said. “But AI is a moment in time to displace many of them.” Those same fears have rattled Wall Street in 2026, at times sending software tumbling in what became known as the “SaaSpocalypse.”
Rox’s argument: AI-native startups can build around agents from the start, rather than retrofit them into older software. “It’s like you have a house and you just throw in one more floor, versus from the beginning you decided it was going to be a four-floor home,” Bhargava added. “It’s a huge opportunity for people to start fresh with a fresh code base built around [large language models]…Those products are ultimately better.”
To be sure, the incumbents aren’t easy targets. Salesforce generated $41.5 billion in revenue for fiscal 2026 and says it has worked with more than 150,000 companies. ServiceNow, meanwhile, ended its latest quarter with 680 customers with more than $5 million each in annual contract value.
Meanwhile, Rox’s early customers include high-profile firms like Ramp, New Relic, Trafigura, MongoDB, Groq, and America’s Auto Auction, to name a few. The startup also says its annual recurring revenue grew more than tenfold since its first year after launch. The fresh capital will fund more AI research and product development. Rox plans to expand its U.S. sales, marketing, and commercial team fivefold next year.
“Us in venture, our whole thing is to back the Davids against the Goliaths,” Bhargava said, “And we think that this will happen here.”
See you tomorrow,
Morgan Chittum
X: @morgan_chittum
Email: morgan.chittum@fortune.com
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Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.
VENTURE CAPITAL
– Mercor, a San Francisco-based provider of human expertise data and infrastructure for AI training and evaluation, raised $750 million in Series D funding from Benchmark, Felicis, Fundomo, and others.
– Path Robotics, a Columbus, Ohio-based developer of AI-powered robotic systems for welding and manufacturing, raised $300 million in Series E funding. Georgian led the round and was joined by Addition, Drive Capital, IronArc Ventures, and others.
– Daylight, a New York City-based provider of AI-powered cybersecurity services, raised $80 million in Series B funding. Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives led the round and was joined by Okta Ventures and existing investors.
– Index Industries, a Chicago-based developer of technology and infrastructure for investing in U.S. housing, raised $50 million in seed funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Polychain Capital, Galaxy Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, and others.
– Graphon Labs, a San Francisco-based developer of memory and data infrastructure for AI agents, raised $35 million in Series A funding. RRE Ventures led the round and was joined by HP, Energy Impact Partners, Hitachi Ventures, and Gaia VC.
– Dreeze, a Tel Aviv-based provider of cloud application backup and recovery software, raised $33 million in seed funding. Norwest and Bessemer Venture Partners led the round and were joined by Claltech.
– Nidus, a New York City-based developer of AI-powered robotics for defense manufacturing, raised $30 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins, Costanoa, Ludlow Ventures, SF1, Absolute Partners, Tau, and angel investors.
– Tendrils, a Cambridge, U.K.-based developer of general-purpose processors, raised $30 million in funding. Benchmark led the round and was joined by Visionaries Club and others.
– Sumary, a Copenhagen-based provider of AI-powered accounting software, raised $25 million in seed funding. Singular led the round and was joined by existing investors byFounders, Partech, Tenity, and angel investors.
– WhiteMatter, a San Francisco- and Austin, Texas-based provider of security and governance software for enterprise AI agents, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Blumberg Capital led the round and was joined by existing investors Crew Capital and Sprout & Oak.
– PuppyGraph, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based provider of graph query software for enterprise AI agents, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Particle Future and defy.vc led the round.
– Ancep, a London, U.K.-based provider of AI agents for commercial insurance brokers, raised $8.5 million in funding. Creandum led the round and was joined by Kleiner Perkins, Vicus Ventures, and angel investors.
– Valkyrie Dynamics, a Lithuania-based developer of miniature radar seekers for interceptor drones, raised €1 million ($1.2 million) in pre-seed funding. Hexa led the round and was joined by angel investors.
PRIVATE EQUITY
– KPS Capital Partners agreed to acquire a 70% stake in MM Packaging, a Vienna-based manufacturer of consumer packaging, from MM Group in a deal valuing the business at €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion). MM Group will retain a 30% stake, and MM Packaging will operate as a standalone company.
– American Cutting Edge, a Pfingsten portfolio company, acquired Pilot Precision Products, a South Deerfield, Mass.-based distributor and manufacturer of consumable industrial broaches, cutting tools, and precision drill bits. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
– Harbor, a BayPine portfolio company, acquired AAC Consulting, a Montgomery, Ala.-based consulting firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Mubadala Capital agreed to acquire a minority stake in LSV Advisors, a New York City-based secondaries investment manager. Financial terms were not disclosed.
EXITS
– Levine Leichtman Capital Partners acquired Five Star Franchising, a Springville, Utah-based franchisor of home services brands, from Princeton Equity Group. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
– Wind Point Partners acquired CCS Facility Services, a Denver-based provider of janitorial and facility services, from Silver Oak Services Partners. Financial terms were not disclosed.
OTHERS
– Oura agreed to acquire Counsel Health, a Boston-based provider of AI-powered virtual primary care, for $625 million in cash.
– Cogent, a provider of autonomous cyber defense software, agreed to acquire Specular, a San Francisco-based developer of AI agents for identifying, assessing, and remediating cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Securitize agreed to acquire River One, a New York City-based provider of institutional asset-backed financing technology. Financial terms were not disclosed.
FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS
– Zacua Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, raised $135 million for its second fund focused on early-stage technology.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: fortune.com
