UPDATED 08:12 EDT / MAY 05 2015

NEWS

Outreach snags $2M to automate sales tasks

Outreach Inc., which delivers a sales platform that helps companies to automate calls and emails, has just announced $2 million in seed funding.

The platform is capable of giving salespeople “superpowers”, said Manuel Medina, the company’s CEO, in an interview with VentureBeat. It does so by allowing users to manage more potential customers in less time, thanks to its software that can detect whether or not emails and calls have been responded to, before sending appropriate reminders when necessary.

Even better is that Outreach can also be integrated into common existing CRM platforms like Salesforce, with updates being synced across both.

According to Medina, a salesperson’s life is a never-ending process of communicating with potential customers and following up. Automating this process is an obvious step, but it still requires a human touch, and that’s where Outreach comes in.

“Most people couldn’t stick to a process,” Medina said, “because they have a thousand things flying at them that make them miss their tasks and drop the ball.”

Rather than setting manual reminders of when to follow up a lead, Outreach tracks which emails have been replied to and when calls have been made, creating what it calls “sequences” that include the most appropriate next step. It’s crucial for salespeople to follow up if they’re to get a response from their prospects, but they have to be careful not to pressure people too much. Luckily, Outreach is intelligent enough to know when it’s all getting a bit too much, and cancel any pending, automated responses.

Based in Seattle, Outreach already claims almost 250 customers, including the predictive lead scoring firm Fliptop, which saw its sales activity double within just a couple of weeks.

Outreach’s backers in the latest round include Version One Ventures, plus ex-LinkedIn executives Sarah Imbach and Ellen Levy. Previous investors Mike Maples of Floodgate and Mark Sugarman of MHS Capital also participated in the round.

Outreach, which has raised $2.4 million in total, says it will use the new funds to expand its workforce and hunt for more clients.

Image credit: Sarangib via Pixabay.com

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