The Venture Codex Logo

The Venture Codex

Benchstrength

Nyack, NY, 10960, United States

Overview

Benchstrength is an early venture capital firm investing in a technology companies.

Total investments
13
Lead investments
4
Investments · 12mo
2
Active investors
1
Visit website

Investment portfolio

  • Knox

    Participated · Series A · Mar 2026

    Knox operates the largest managed federal cloud and a multi-cloud federal boundary across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud to enable SaaS vendors to obtain FedRAMP authorization rapidly. The company offers a pre-authorized environment that it says reduces first-year FedRAMP costs by about 90% and can achieve authorization in 90 days. Knox holds Authorizations to Operate (ATOs) across 15 federal civilian and defense agencies and serves customers including Adobe, Celonis, OutSystems, Armis, and BigID. Its platform targets both federal and commercial production environments by applying government-grade security and compliance at scale. The company intends to use the Series A proceeds to expand federal authorization capacity and accelerate customer onboarding into authorized environments.

  • Slide

    Participated · Series B · Mar 2026

    Slide provides a FinOps platform designed to give organizations detailed insights, cost allocation, and optimization opportunities for cloud spending. The company positions itself to help teams implement FinOps practices—inform, optimize, and operate—to make cloud costs predictable and accountable across technology, finance, and business stakeholders. Slide’s offerings target challenges such as opaque cloud provider billing and the cost-allocation difficulties introduced by containerized and Kubernetes-based environments. Following its $70 million Series B, Slide plans to expand into the EMEA region and accelerate product development to enhance its capabilities. The financing reflects growing market demand for tools that bridge technical operations and financial accountability in the cloud.

  • Garage

    Participated · Series A · Aug 2025

    Garage was founded by CEO Martin Hunt and CTO Alaz Sengul to address procurement and resale challenges for expensive, hard-to-move equipment such as firetrucks. The platform automates appraisal, freight quoting, payment solutions, and delivery coordination, and offers listings as auctions or "buy now" sales. Its customers include firefighters, civil servants, fleet managers, and public works directors; the product is used in all 50 states and Garage named clients such as Burlington, Virginia and South Charleston, West Virginia. The company emphasizes security for high-value transactions, which are often greater than $100,000, and uses AI across appraisal and logistics. Garage has raised $18 million to date and plans to use the new funding to expand the team and grow its nationwide marketplace. The founders say the product streamlines a previously manual process that relied on auctions, Facebook groups, and classifieds.

  • Alta

    Participated · Seed · Jun 2025

    Alta builds an AI stylist and personal shopper that generates outfit recommendations and personalized virtual avatars so users can try on looks. Users upload their closets via photos, forwarded receipts, or Alta’s database and can mix existing items with pieces they are considering buying. The product offers contextual suggestions—based on budget, lifestyle, weather, and calendar—and presents curated lookbooks for events. Alta plans to use new capital to grow the team and fund research and development, continuously updating its in-house models and improving the experience based on community feedback. The company has struck a partnership with the Council of Fashion Designers of America and intends to pursue retailer partnerships as it expands in Europe and parts of Oceania and the Pacific. Founder Jenny Wang relocated to New York to build the technology and continues to code while leveraging advisors and fashion partners to refine the product.

  • GoDaddy

    Participated · Seed · Jun 2025

    PLAiR’s core product is a dolphin-fin-shaped USB dongle that plugs into a TV and, once connected to Wi-Fi via a companion mobile app, lets users send photos and videos from computers, tablets, or phones directly to the big screen. Priced in the $59–$79 range, the device seeks to differentiate itself from Apple TV and Roku by allowing playback of almost any online or mobile content rather than being limited to pre-approved apps. PLAiR supports iOS and Android apps as well as browser extensions for creating and managing video playlists, and multiple dongles can be linked to beam content to several TVs simultaneously. The company has raised $2.1 million to finance the product’s rollout. While specific revenue, user numbers, founding date, and location were not disclosed, the firm is positioning its affordable, platform-agnostic hardware as an alternative to Apple’s AirPlay ecosystem and other set-top streaming solutions.

Team