Work-Bench

Co-founders and General Partners Jessica Lin and Jonathan Lehr lead investment decisions. Lin previously sourced enterprise deals at Bowery Capital, while Lehr focused on enterprise technology investments at DFJ Gotham Ventures before they launched Work-Bench's community in 2013.

The firm runs a weekly enterprise technology meetup in New York that has drawn over 12,000 attendees since inception. This gathering of corporate IT leaders, founders, and engineers functions as an ongoing radar for early-stage enterprise startups, often surfacing companies before they formally fundraise.

Both. Work-Bench began in 2013 as a physical coworking and event space catering to enterprise technology startups, then raised its first institutional fund. Today the firm operates as a dedicated seed-stage venture fund while maintaining its enterprise meetup series as a core sourcing and portfolio-support mechanism.

Work-Bench invests between $1 million and $2.5 million at the seed stage, typically leading or co-leading rounds. The firm reserves capital for follow-on investments in later rounds when portfolio companies demonstrate enterprise traction.

The firm concentrates heavily on the New York metro enterprise ecosystem, where its corporate buyer network is densest. It has extended selectively to Boston and other East Coast hubs, but geographic proximity to its community events is a major underwriting criterion.