Fortune Journalist Morgan Chittum reports that enterprise software giants such as Salesforce have been supporting the work processes of large global enterprises for decades, while Rox co-founder Ishan Mukherjee bets on a future where such systems will no longer be needed.

This AI startup company has informed Fortune that it has completed a $100 million Series B financing round, with a post-investment valuation of $1.3 billion. General Catalyst and March Capital led the investment together, while Sequoia and GV continued to participate, with Prosperity7 joining as a new investor.

The proposition of Rox is that customer relationship management software should not only be responsible for storing information, but also make use of that information. According to Rox, its AI agent can study customer accounts, suggest priority follow-up targets, and prepare outreach content for customers. In simple terms, it allows sales staff to reduce administrative work and spend more time with customers.

The confidence of Mukherjee comes from past experiences. Before founding Rox, he established Pixie Labs, which was acquired by New Relic for approximately $150 million in 2020. Afterwards, he also served as the Chief Growth Officer for New Relic.

Mukherjee said, "When operating a listed company during the pandemic, I deeply realized that every company relies on Salesforce, especially their CRM to run their businesses. That is not a forward-looking approach, because AI is about to arrive on a large scale."

He added, "In the future, autonomous agents will play a significant role in a large portion of face-to-face business work within the economy, not just in tech companies. Do we believe that Salesforce is the right partner to help CEO and its executive team truly transform their business? My conclusion from one experience is negative."

He also saw an opportunity: large companies like Nvidia and Intel were migrating customer data from Salesforce to their own environments. Mukherjee said, "This means that Salesforce, the world's largest in-app application company, is becoming less of a moat and less entrenched."

However, how does Rox plan to challenge a company with a market value of $172 billion? Mukherjee points out that the founding team has extensive experience in cutting-edge technology development. The co-founders of Rox include AWS Amazon Aurora, a founding member of the database service; Shriram Sridharan, a former employee of Google; Diogo Ribeiro; and AI, a professor at Stanford University. Mukherjee himself has previously served as the product leader for Apple Siri Knowledge Graph.

Partners General Catalyst and Marc Bhargava stated that this is also one of the important reasons why the institution invested in Rox before the product was launched and before any revenue was generated in 2024, referring to Rox as a "talent magnet."

But talent alone is not enough to shake the giants of enterprise software. Bhargava said to Fortune: "For a long time, many companies claimed they wanted to challenge ServiceNow or Workday, or even Salesforce, but in the end, they all disappeared." He noted that strong customer relationships and the ability to acquire capital have always allowed these established companies to maintain a dominant position. "However, AI presents a window of opportunity where many companies could be replaced." He added that this concern also hit Wall Street in 2026, with software stocks experiencing a significant decline, a phenomenon known as "SaaSpocalypse"."

The argument of Rox is that AI native startups can be built around proxies from the very beginning, rather than adding proxy functionality to existing old software afterwards. Bhargava says, "It's like you already have a house and then decide to add another floor on top of it; instead of deciding from the start to build a four-story house." He adds, "For those who start from scratch and build their products with large language models as the core codebase, this is a huge opportunity... These products will ultimately be better."

Of course, the existing giants are not easy to deal with. Salesforce achieved revenue of $41.5 billion in the fiscal year 2026 and stated that it serves over 150,000 companies. Meanwhile, ServiceNow had 680 customers at the end of the most recent quarter, with annual contract values exceeding $5 million each.

Current early customers of Rox include well-known companies such as Ramp, New Relic, Trafigura, MongoDB, Groq, America's Auto Auction, and others. The startup also stated that from its first year of operation, its annual recurring revenue has grown by more than ten times. The new funds will be used for additional AI research and product development. Rox plans to expand its sales, marketing, and business teams in the United States by five times next year.

Bhargava said, "We who work in venture capital are essentially supporting David in his challenge against Goliath, and we believe that this will happen here."

The following is the signature and contact information of Morgan Chittum, as well as other transaction details listed in the press release of Fortune.

Venture Capital

• AI, headquartered in San Francisco, a provider of training and evaluation for human professional knowledge data and infrastructure, Mercor, completed a $750 million Series D financing round with the participation of investors such as Benchmark, Felicis, and Fundomo.
• Path Robotics, a developer of robotic welding and manufacturing systems headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, has completed a $300 million Series E financing round. The round was led by Georgian, with participation from Addition, Drive Capital, IronArc Ventures, and others.
• New York-based cybersecurity service provider Daylight has completed a $80 million Series B financing round, led by Growth Equity under Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with Okta Ventures and existing investors also participating.
• Index Industries, headquartered in Chicago and providing technology and infrastructure for housing investments in the United States, has completed a $50 million seed financing round. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Polychain Capital, Galaxy Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, and others.
• Graphon Labs, headquartered in San Francisco and providing memory and data infrastructure for AI agents, has completed a $35 million Series A financing round. The round was led by RRE Ventures, with participation from HP, Energy Impact Partners, Hitachi Ventures, and Gaia VC.
• Cloud application backup and recovery software provider Dreeze, headquartered in Tel Aviv, has completed a $33 million seed round of financing, led by Norwest and Bessemer Venture Partners, with Claltech also participating in the investment.
• Nidus, headquartered in New York and providing AI robotics technology for defense manufacturing, has secured $30 million in financing. Investors include Kleiner Perkins, Costanoa, Ludlow Ventures, SF1, Absolute Partners, Tau, as well as angel investors.
• General-purpose processor developer Tendrils, headquartered in Cambridge, UK, has secured $30 million in financing, led by Benchmark, with Visionaries Club and others also participating in the investment.
• Copenhagen-based AI accounting software provider Sumary has completed a $25 million seed round of financing, led by Singular. Existing investors include byFounders, Partech, Tenity, as well as angel investors.
• WhiteMatter, headquartered in San Francisco and Austin, Texas, and providing security and governance software for enterprise AI agents, has completed a $20 million Series A financing round led by Blumberg Capital. Existing investors include Crew Capital, Sprout, and Oak.
• PuppyGraph, headquartered in Santa Clara and providing image query software for AI companies, has completed a $10 million Series A financing round, led by Particle Future and defy.vc.
• Ancep, headquartered in London and providing AI agency services for commercial insurance brokers, has completed a $8.5 million financing round led by Creandum, with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Vicus Ventures and angel investors.
• Lithuania-based micro-radar seeker developer Valkyrie Dynamics has completed a seed pre-financing round of 1 million euros (1.2 million US dollars), led by Hexa with participation from angel investors.

Private Equity

• KPS Capital Partners agrees to acquire a 70% stake in MM Packaging, a Vienna-based consumer packaging manufacturer, from MM Group. The transaction values the business at 2.4 billion euros (2.7 billion US dollars). MM Group will retain a 30% stake, and MM Packaging will operate as an independent company.
• Pfingsten's subsidiary, American Cutting Edge, has acquired Pilot Precision Products, a distributor and manufacturer of consumable industrial broaches, cutting tools, and precision drills located in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. The financial terms have not been disclosed.
• BayPine's subsidiary, Harbor, has acquired the consulting firm AAC Consulting located in Montgomery, Alabama. The financial terms have not been disclosed.
• Mubadala Capital agrees to acquire a minority stake in the secondary market investment management company LSV Advisors. Financial terms have not been disclosed.

Exit transaction

• Levine Leichtman Capital Partners acquired Five Star Franchising from Princeton Equity Group, a franchise operator based in Springville in Utah that operates a home services brand. The financial terms were not disclosed.
• Wind Point Partners acquired CCS Facility Services from Silver Oak Services Partners, a cleaning and facilities services provider located in Denver. The financial terms were not disclosed.

Other transactions

• Oura agrees to acquire Counsel Health for $625 million in cash, a company based in Boston that provides AI virtual primary healthcare services.
• Autonomous network defense software provider Cogent has agreed to acquire Specular, a San Francisco-based company that develops AI agents for identifying, assessing, and repairing cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Financial terms have not been disclosed.
• Securitize agrees to acquire River One, a company based in New York that provides institutional asset-backed financing technology. The financial terms have not been disclosed.

Funds and Master Funds

• San Francisco venture capital firm Zacua Ventures raised $135 million for its second fund, which focuses on early-stage technologies.