Microsoft Acquires Cove Team, AI Startup Backed by Sequoia

Microsoft has recently integrated the Cove team, a startup specializing in AI collaboration, backed by the prestigious investment fund Sequoia. This decision was announced in an email sent to Cove's customers, informing them of the imminent shutdown of the service.

Cove, founded at the end of 2023 by Stephen Chau, Andy Szybalski, and Mike Chu, aimed to revolutionize collaboration through artificial intelligence. The founders, who previously contributed to projects like Google Maps' Street View, successfully raised $6 million in an initial funding round. Among the investors were Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil, Homebrew, Adverb, Scott Belsky, and Lenny Rachitsky.

Cove's flagship product was an infinite whiteboard, allowing users to generate content blocks for various tasks, such as trip planning, using AI. Unlike a traditional chat interface, this canvas offered increased flexibility to explore different options through varied instructions.

In addition to its AI features, Cove integrated a browser, PDF files, and images to enrich the context of collaborative projects. The startup was in direct competition with companies such as Miro, TLDraw, and Kosmik.

The Cove team will join Microsoft, and the service will be permanently shut down on April 1. All user data will be deleted, but Cove has taken care to refund March subscriptions and offers a data export process.

In a blog post, Cove expressed its excitement about continuing its mission within Microsoft AI, stating that the ideas developed will continue to thrive. Microsoft has already integrated similar features with the addition of Copilot to its Whiteboard product in 2023.

Although TechCrunch attempted to contact Microsoft for details on the integration of Cove's technology, no response has been provided at this time.