Showpad Inc., a startup helping enterprise sales teams close deals more effectively, today announced that it has closed a deal of its own: a $70 million funding round co-led by Insight Partners and Dawn Capital.

The investment marks the fourth time Showpad has raised outside capital. Other participants in the round included Hummingbird Ventures and Korelya Capital, plus Silicon Valley Bank, which provided an unspecified amount of debt financing as part of the round.

Chicago-based Showpad has built a sales enablement platform for managing the pitch materials companies use when presenting to potential buyers. Marketers can store product briefs, graphics and related content in a centralized library, as well as distribute them to sales teams. The fact that everything is done in one place makes it easier to ensure all users have access to the most up-to-date content, which is not a given that large enterprises have employees spread out across multiple locations.

On the sales representative’s end, Showpad displays the shared content in a self-service dashboard. It uses artificial intelligence to recommend the most relevant items for each sales situation. The startup’s algorithms take into account details such as the location of the prospect a representative is pitching, their industry and the specifications of the product being pitched.

Beyond providing a content management system, Showpad doubles as a presentation tool. A built-in augmented reality feature allows salespeople to use their mobile devices to demonstrate complex products such as industrial equipment. Companies can also add interactive elements to presentations, such as a calculator embedded into a slide that allows prospects to generate cost estimates.

Showpad claims to have seen U.S. revenues grow 150% in the past year thanks to strong enterprise demand. The startup said its platform is now used by salespeople at more than 1,000 organizations, including major brands such as Coca-Cola Co. and Xerox Corp.

Showpad will use the new capital to launch a hiring initiative that is expected to more than double its workforce to 400 employees by the end of the year. The startup will also continue making investments in feature development. Late last year, Showpad shelled out $50 million to acquire LearnCore, a software tool for training sales teams it has since integrated into its platform.

The round brings the startup’s total outside funding to more than $180 million. That puts it just ahead of Seismic Software Inc., the maker of a competing sales enablement platform that raised a $100 million round in December.

Photo: Showpad