Microsoft hires Sequoia-backed Cove team as AI startup shuts down collaboration platform

Microsoft hires the team of Sequioa-backed AI collaboration platform, Cove | TechCrunch

The team behind Cove, a Sequioa-backed startup that was working on an AI-powered collaboration board, has joined Microsoft, according to an email sent to customers informing them that Cove's service is shutting down. Cove was founded in late 2023 by Stephen Chau, Andy Szybalski, and Mike Chu, who worked on Google Maps features like Street View. The startup raised $6 million in a seed round from Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil, Homebrew, Adverb, Scott Belsky, and Lenny Rachitsky in 2024. Its tool was an infinite whiteboard that let users use AI to generate different blocks for tasks like trip planning. The founders felt that the chat interface for AI was not editable, and a canvas provided more flexibility when going in different directions with prompts. Cove also allowed users to use a built-in browser, PDFs, and images to give more context to its AI, which could create new cards, tables, and lists. The startup competed with the likes of Miro, TLDraw, and Kosmik. The company said in an email to customers that the entire Cove team is joining Microsoft and the product will shut down on April 1, and all user data will be deleted. Cove mentioned that it has refunded all subscriptions for March and is offering a data export process. "When we started Cove, we set out to reimagine how people collaborate with AI. As model capabilities have accelerated, our conviction in that mission has only grown stronger. We're thrilled to continue this work at Microsoft AI, where we'll have the opportunity to pursue an even bigger vision," the company said in a blog post on its site. In addition, the company said that "the ideas behind it [Cove] will live on" within Microsoft. Notably, Microsoft added Copilot to its own collaboration product, Whiteboard, in 2023. TechCrunch reached out to Microsoft to understand how it plans to integrate Cove's technology within its ecosystem, but did not immediately hear back.

Microsoft hires employees from Cove, a small Sequoia-backed AI startup that helps teams collaborate

Cove, a Silicon Valley startup that helps workers collaborate while using AI agents, announced Tuesday that its team is joining Microsoft. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Cove will shut down its product on April 1. "When we started Cove, we set out to reimagine how people collaborate with AI," Cove co-founder and CEO Stephen Chau wrote on LinkedIn. "As model capabilities have accelerated, our conviction in that mission has only grown stronger. We're thrilled to continue this work at Microsoft, where we'll have the opportunity to pursue an even bigger vision." Cove raised a $6 million seed round in 2024 led by Sequoia Capital. The company built software to turn single-threaded chats with conversational agents into a visual workspace. It later allowed users to create custom AI apps. The startup has less than 10 employees, according to LinkedIn. Chau previously was head of product at Uber Eats before launching Cove in 2023 with Mike Chu and Andy Szybalski. All three previously worked together at Google Maps. Microsoft is aiming to boost adoption of its Copilot assistant, which remains a relatively small fraction of its commercial user base amid big investments in AI infrastructure. Last week the tech giant unveiled Copilot Cowork, a new AI assistant that can run tasks in the background, create documents, and work across Microsoft 365 apps, Separately, Microsoft on Tuesday announced a reorg within its Copilot group, unifying its consumer and commercial AI efforts under former Snap executive Jacob Andreou while narrowing the role of Microsoft AI leader Mustafa Suleyman to focus on the superintelligence and frontier models.