Finalists for the 2025 VB Transform Innovation Showcase

Join the event trusted for over two decades by business leaders. VB Transform brings the people who are building enterprise AI strategies together. Learn more about the Innovation Showcase finalists at this year’s VB VB Transformwill be held in San Francisco on June 24-25. They will be on stage as we explore what’s really working in enterprise AI– from copilots and agents. Seven companies were selected to showcase the generative AI features or products that are most likely disrupting enterprise. The selected presenters will be invited to address an exclusive audience of 600 industry leaders and will receive feedback directly from a panel consisting of VC judges. The 2025 Innovation Showcase finalist are:

CTGT

San Francisco-based CTGT was founded in 2024 by Stanford and University of California San Diego researchers. CTGT has developed an AI risk management platform that will change the way enterprises deploy generative AI. CTGT’s platform allows for continuous real-time monitoring, automated refinement of models, and learning and adaptation within live environments, without ever going offline. This allows models to be improved on the fly. This closes the gap between development, deployment and ensures maximum uptime and security for mission-critical AI apps.

This company raised A seed round of $7.2 million will be held in February.

Catio

Palo Alto-based CATO combines AI with a platform to help companies optimize their tech stack architecture. The platform acts as a copilot, providing data-driven recommendations and insights to evaluate, plan, and evolve a company’s technology infrastructure. Catio addresses these challenges with continuous architecture design, strategic planning of tech stacks, accurate analytics, evaluation of architectures and personalized recommendations tailored to each enterprise’s needs. All powered by advanced AI and proprietary data.

In March, Catio announced””https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/catio-secures-3m-to-revolutionize-tech-decision-making-with-ai-powered-intelligence-302409581.html” ” rel=””noreferrer noopener”” target=””_blank” “> Additional funding of $3 million

. This is on top of the $4 million raised in 2023-2024.

Fist

Mountain View-based Loting aims to democratize AI, especially in the area of predictive analytics. This is done by leveraging cutting edge Graph Neural Networks and Relational Deep Learning. They want to make it easier for companies to build and deploy highly precise machine learning models directly using their relational data.

Kumo raised $37 million over two rounds. Their latest round was an $18 million Series A in September 2022

Solo.io

Cambridge, Mass.-based Solo.io (19459089) is a cloud native application networking company. It provides solutions for connecting and observing modern apps, especially those built with Kubernetes or microservices. Solo.io was founded in 2017 to simplify the complexity of application networking within dynamic, multicloud environments. The company has launched kagent, a cloud native framework of its kind that helps DevOps engineers and platform engineers create and run AI agents within Kubernetes.

A series C funding round of $135 million in 2021 increased the company’s funding to $175 millions. The company is worth $1 billion.

Superduper.io

Berlin-based Superduper.io (19459089) is an AI company that focuses on simplifying the integration and workflows of AI models directly into existing databases. This eliminates the need for complex data pipes and separate AI infrastructure. Superduper Agents are their core offering, allowing non-technical users the ability to answer even the most difficult questions about their documents, data and systems, and to set up AI employees for their tasks, just by chatting to ready-made AI Agents. All without having to deal with complicated tools, spreadsheets or dashboards, or needing help from engineers and analysts.

Superduper.io raised $1.75 Million in One seed funding round Hetz Ventures and MongoDB are notable investors. It was also a part of Intel Ignite accelerator.

Sutra

Oakland-based Sutra uses AI to allow users to create production-ready mobile or web applications by simply describing their ideas in plain text. It aims at democratizing software development by making it accessible to businesses and individuals without coding knowledge.

Sutro, founded in 2021, has raised over Six million dollarswill be distributed in two rounds of funding early in 2023-2024.

Qdrant

Berlin-based Qdrant provides a massive-scale Vector Database with a Vector Search Engine that is designed for the next-generation of AI applications. It is built in Rust a language that is known for its performance and safety, making it an excellent choice for AI workloads.

Qdrant, founded in 2020, has raised $37.8 millions over three rounds of financing, the most recent of which was a series A of $28 million in January 2024.

Meet our Judging Panel (19459096)

Emily Zhao, principal of Salesforce Ventures

Zhao has been a principal with Salesforce Ventures focuses on AI/ML. She also spends her time on developer tools, cybersecurity, vertical SaaS and health tech. She joined Salesforce Ventures at the beginning of 2022, and helped launch its $500 Million generative AI fund. She has led many investments in the fund including Hugging Face RunwayML Anthropic Cohere, and others.

Prior to joining Salesforce Ventures Zhao was an investor with Avenir Growth Capital in New York. She spent the majority of her time on vertical SaaS and health tech, as well as application software. Emily was a Blackstone associate in the Private Equity Group and invested in corporate acquisitions before joining Avenir.

Matt crane – partner at menlo ventures (

Kraning’s one of the most prominent members of the Menlo Ventures team. Menlo’s new partners. He is focusing on investing in AI and enterprise SaaS. He also has a keen interest in cybersecurity, national defense, and cybersecurity.

A highly technical former founder, he is a proven company-builder with a PhD in electrical engineering and a specialization in AI and large scale computing. Kraning, who was previously the co-founder of Expanse and its CTO, helped define the AI driven attack surface management category. He has also advised and invested over 50 startups including unicorns Peregrine, Astranis and Wispr Flow.

Rebecca Li (19459101) is the Investment Director of Amex Ventures. Amex Ventures She joined in 2024 and focused on enterprise software investments, leading early-stage investment in infrastructure software, developer tool, data, and AI. Li was the head of fintech and software venture investment at Global Asset Capital before joining American Express. Her previous experience includes business development at Credit Karma, partnerships at GIC and technology private equity investments.

Come and see VB Transform.

The pitches will take place on June 25, from 4:45 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. PT. On the main stagewe will have our in-person attendees.

The presenters will have a three-minute pitch, followed by a two-minute feedback session from the judging panel. The awards will be given in three categories: most likely to succeed; coolest technology; and best presentation style.

Read the winners of VB Transform: SambaNova Instabase Tabnine.