One-year-old B2B startup Salesken said Thursday it has raised USD 8 million in its Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital India that included a secondary transaction with investors such as Unitus Ventures and Michael and Susan Dell Foundation who made a partial exit.
This Bengaluru-based startup founded by Sreeraman Vaidyanathan and Surga Thilakan helps the sales teams with “real-time intelligence” during their conversations with potential customers to help them clutch more deals. Sales teams using Salesken.ai receive intelligence on various aspects of the sales pitch, from lead qualification to navigating pricing discussions.
The fresh funding will be used for further development of Salesken’s AI-based conversation intelligence platform (Salesken.ai) and for expansion across the Asia Pacific and North America markets.
“Companies squander a third of their customer acquisition costs on preventable lead losses. They also face the unpredictability of sales outcomes and an inability to replicate success at scale. Salesken.ai helps them by enabling sales teams to adopt a more scientific approach to sales management in real-time during their customer conversations,” said Surga Thilakan, co-founder and CEO, of Salesken.ai.
The company’s AI learns successful sales tactics used by top-performing salespeople and the best-selling practices across industries and imparts those techniques to the sales team. Salesken said nearly 48% of all sales teams now sell products over the phone or web conferencing tools, and the “Inside Sales” industry—a model where sales is handled remotely—employs over 20 million people globally.
“Inside sales has many unique management, training, and scaling challenges, but is often the most productive form of sales for companies across a range of industries. Salesken enables higher productivity for this segment of users and brings a step function in their performance,” said Shailesh Lakhani, managing director, Sequoia Capital India LLP.