The team behind Cove, a Sequoia-backed startup developing an AI-powered collaboration board, has joined Microsoft. Customers were informed via email that Cove’s service will be shutting down.
Founded in late 2023 by Stephen Chau, Andy Szybalski, and Mike Chu, who previously worked on Google Maps features like Street View, Cove raised $6 million in a seed round in 2024 from Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil, Homebrew, Adverb, Scott Belsky, and Lenny Rachitsky.
Cove offered an infinite whiteboard enabling users to generate various blocks for tasks, such as trip planning, with AI. Founders believed that a canvas allowed more flexibility than a chat interface for AI when exploring different directions with prompts.
The platform also featured a built-in browser, PDFs, and images to provide more context for its AI, capable of creating new cards, tables, and lists.
Cove competed with companies like Miro, TLDraw, and Kosmik.
The startup announced via email to customers that the entire team is joining Microsoft, and the product will terminate on April 1, with all user data being deleted. Cove has refunded March subscriptions 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.
Additionally, the company stated that “the ideas behind it [Cove] will live on” within Microsoft. Microsoft added Copilot to its own collaboration product, Whiteboard, in 2023.
TechCrunch contacted Microsoft to understand how it plans to integrate Cove’s technology within its ecosystem, but did not immediately hear back.