Bloomberg Beta is an early-stage venture capital firm with $375M under management, capitalized solely by Bloomberg. The fund exists to expand Bloomberg’s horizons by investing in companies built by extraordinary founders that make business work better, with a focus on machine intelligence.

Bloomberg Beta

CNTP is a global, multi-stage, technology investment firm operating out of Silicon Valley and New York.

Columbus Nova Technology Partners

Red Dog Capital

Tuesday Capital (formerly known as CrunchFund) is a seed stage focused venture firm that invests in information technology enabled companies. In 2019 CrunchFund was rebranded as Tuesday Capital.

Tuesday Capital

Founded in 2005, True Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups. With more than $3.8 billion under management, True provides seed and Series A financing to entrepreneurs in some of today's growing markets.  With more than 40 team members including special advisors, operations professionals, and founders-turned-investors, True represents one of the largest and most experienced teams dedicated to the ecosystem.  The True team believes creativity flourishes when founders are supported fully and empowered to pursue brave ideas. To that end, the True Platform offers programs that inspire professional and personal growth. To date, True has helped more than 350 companies launch and scale their businesses, creating over 85,000 jobs worldwide.  True was awarded Venture Firm of the Year by the National Venture Capital Association in 2018. To learn more, visit www.trueventures.com.

True Ventures

Storm Ventures is a $600m (TAM) VC firm 100% focused solely on early-stage enterprise investments.  We've been founders ourselves, of enterprise companies including Airespace (acquired by Cisco) and EchoSign (acquired by Adobe).  We've had to go without pay as CEOs ourselves to make payroll.  We've gone from $0 to $100m in ARR and lived all the stages in between.  We've here to help, and add some strategic capital and insights.  And not be in the way when we're not needed.

Storm Ventures

Founded in 2000, Industry Ventures is an investment firm that focuses on making venture capital investments. The firm makes investments through secondary opportunities, primary fund investments and direct co-investments in venture-backed companies. The firm has $3.5B in AUM and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Industry Ventures

Devoteam is an IT consulting group created in 1995. Combining consulting and technical solutions offers enables Devoteam to provide its customers with independent advice and effective solutions that meet their industrial objectives.  Present in 20 countries and drawing on 20 years of experience, we improve business performance making their companies truly digital. We build IT infrastructure for digital, and make sure people are along for the ride.  In 2015, Devoteam achieved revenues of 485M€.

Devoteam

Norwest is a venture capital and growth equity investment firm that specializes in venture and growth equity companies. Since its inception, it has invested in more than 600 companies and partnered with over 140 active companies across our venture and growth equity portfolio. The firm invests in early to late-stage companies across a wide range of sectors with a focus on consumer, enterprise, and healthcare. It offers a deep network of connections, operating experience, and a wide range of impactful services to help CEOs and founders scale their businesses.

Norwest Venture Partners

Google Ventures supports innovative founders who are moving the world forwards. They invest across the life sciences, consumer, enterprise, crypto, climate, and frontier technology sectors. With Alphabet as its sole limited partner, GV operates on long time horizons and deals in decades, not rounds. Their operating partners help startups with company building across design, equity, diversity & inclusion, talent, and engineering. They also help startups interface with Google, providing unique access to the world’s best technology and talent. Launched as Google Ventures in 2009, GV has over $8 billion in assets under management and 400 active portfolio companies across North America and Europe. Notable investment outcomes include Uber, Nest, Slack, GitLab, Duo Security, Flatiron Health, Verve Therapeutics, and One Medical. GV is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices in Cambridge, New York, and London.

Google Ventures

DHVC is a venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. We invest in Enterprise, Consumer, FinTech, and Healthcare sectors. Our team brings together decades of combined experience in entrepreneurship, operations, investment, and research to serve our portfolio companies in growing and achieving success.

DHVC

Copper

Copper is the only crm made for G Suite, works instantly and has an intuitive user experience. Designed for the teams who close deals, Copper is helping people focus on what’s important: authentic relationships.

<div>Formerly known as ProsperWorks, Copper is a CRM platform built with Google Workspace integration, which helps users make notes, follow up, and close sales directly from their Gmail accounts. Copper became the recommended CRM on the Google Workspace Marketplace in 2015 and was named Google’s Partner of the Year in 2016.</div>

Old CRMs were complicated, expensive, and limited. Simpler, cheaper CRMs targeting SMEs have arrived.

SME CRM

<div>
 
 Formerly known as ProsperWorks, Copper is a CRM platform built with Google Workspace integration, which helps users make notes, follow up, and close sales directly from their Gmail accounts. Copper became the recommended CRM on the Google Workspace Marketplace in 2015 and was named Google’s Partner of the Year in 2016.
 
 
 The company was rebranded Copper after five years of operation in July 2018. Along with the name change, the company simplified its product and enhanced its Google Workspace partnership. 
 
 
 Copper claims that its clients on average have experienced a 30% improvement in sales reporting, a 35% decrease in the sales cycle period, and 36% better response time to customers. As of Q3 2018, 
 Forbes 
 noted that Copper was winning over Salesforce customers in the SME market segment, driven by its affordable price and ease of installation. 
 
 
 In February 2021, Copper acquired Sherlock, an engagement analytics and scoring platform (deal value undisclosed). Copper plans to integrate Sherlock into its current platform to help customers identify the best times for sales conversion, ensure lasting revenue, and build stronger relationships. The merger is expected to fill the growing demand for CRM systems to provide insights that drive meaningful actions. In addition, the firm has entered into product integrations to extend the use case of its product offerings, culminating in the lauch of its 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13559">
 integration marketplace
 </a>
 in October 2022, providing users with access to 70+ integrations covering a variety of use cases including customer support, meeting scheduling, project management, and website tracking. 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of August 2022, Copper counted more than 30,000 paid customers in 100+ countries and supported nine languages. Apart from SME users, In 2019, Copper was found to be the number one CRM for small to medium sized advertising agencies, with more than 900 agency customers.
 
 
 Apart from its longstanding partnership with Google, Copper has its own partner program which it revamped alongside its rebranding to include higher margins (up to 30%) for resellers, focusing particularly on top-tier Google Workspace resellers to SMEs. 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In May 2019, the company raised USD 15 million in a Series C funding round, which it plans to use to further expand its market share in Europe, the Middle East, and African regions, where it currently generates around 30% of total revenue. 
 
 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Benchmark Email is a sales and email marketing solutions provider for SMEs. The company also owns two CRM platforms - 1) BenchmarkONE, and 2) Contacts+. BenchmarkONE is an integrated CRM, sales, and marketing automation platform which helps users track, organize, and manage current and prospective customers. It was formed by the September 2019 merger of Benchmark Email and Hatchbuck and, as of September 2020, had 500,000 users worldwide.
 
 
 In February 2020, BenchmarkOne acquired MarketVolt, an email marketing platform, leading to the development of the K12 edition of the platform. This product helps educators, communicators, recruiters, and administrators automate repetitive tasks so they have more time to focus on teaching. 
 
 
 Benchmark Email 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/469">
 acquired Contacts+
 </a>
 , an SME-focused CRM platform that syncs contacts across Apple, Microsoft, and Google Workspace, in February 2021. Subsequently,  BenchmarkEmail integrated Contacts+ with its entire suite of products including i BenchmarkONE, to help the company expand its market reach to Android and Apple users and give Benchmark Email access to Contacts+’s customer base of over 20,000. 
 
 
 In addition, the firm has expanded its product offerings and automation capabilities by leveraging AI & ML. This includes 1) smart sending AI, a machine learning tool in-built in its email automation solution to increase email deliverability (July 2022); 2) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12027">
 “Smart Content,
 </a>
 ” an AI copywriting tool allowing users to use existing content to automatically generate ready-made content for email campaigns at scale (August 2022) 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 Benchmark Email raised USD 3 million in debt funding in January 2021 from Texas Capital Bank  to execute on its M&A activity. 
 
 
 
</div>

Benchmark Email

<div>
 
 Insightly is a developer of a cloud-based CRM platform focused on SMEs. It is one of the popular CRMs for Office 365 and Google users, and had 1.5 million users in more than 25,000 companies across the globe as of October 2022.
 
 
 Insightly’s CRM platform includes real-time lead routing, email management tools, dashboard to monitor key sales metrics, custom app creation tools, and tools to automate complex multi-step business processes. Insightly’s focus is on improving customer analytics to enhance customer experience (CX) and it does this through multiple integration features, which give users a wide range of flexibility. While its core integration is with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, Insightly can also integrate with 2000+ integrations including Xero, QuickBooks, Mailchimp, and Slack. 
 
 
 Insightly’s three other products that can be be integrated with its CRM platform are 1) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5611">
 Insightly Service
 </a>
 — a customer service and support ticketing product that helps organizations resolve customer issues, share important customer insights across relevant departments in real-time, 2) Insightly Marketing— a marketing platform which includes tools to map customer journeys, email creation tools, options to capture feedback, and campaign management tools, and 3) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/477">
 AppConnect
 </a>
 — a no-code workflow automation platform which integrates finance, IT, marketing, HR, and other business apps with the Insightly platform. AppConnect provides more than 500 pre-built connectors to apps, including Google Workspace, SAP, PayPal, Shopify, Slack, and Dropbox and automates data transfers eliminating the need for professionals with coding skills and data tools. Insightly also provides a mobile app that includes flexible features for enhanced project management and data security.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships 
 
 
 As of October 2022, Insightly was used by 25,000+ customers including Bloomberg, Sanofi, and Bosch. The firm claimed that manufacturers experienced a 70% lift to ROI and a 58% growth in customer win-rates a a year after using Insightly’s CRM. 
 
 
 nsightly also has partnerships with other apps such as Evernote, PandaDoc, Zapier, HubStaff, Proposify, Kixie, and Quotient. In November 2022, Insightly joined 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/14991">
 Intuit’s QuickBooks solutions provider program
 </a>
 to integrate its CRM platform with QuickBooks accounting solutions.
 
 
 Funding & financials 
 
 
 The company’s last funding round was in April 2016, where it raised USD 25 million in a Series C financing round led by Scott Bommer, former founder of SAB Capital. The company was to use the funds to expand its CRM to service larger businesses and to build its direct sales team.
 
 
 
</div>

Insightly

<div>
 
 Pipedrive is an activity-based CRM platform built around scheduling, tracking, and completing activities. It includes tools built specifically to analyze sales, generate leads, automatically schedule follow-ups, and help close deals efficiently at each stage of growth. The platform also integrates with more than 275 third-party apps and includes some of its internally developed add-ons such as LeadBooster&mdash;which is a lead generation tool containing a database of around 400 million lead profiles, 10 million company profiles, and Web Visitors&mdash;which helps enterprises analyze customer activity in their websites. In June 2022, the company expanded its suite of products with the addition of 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10898?industryIds=8">
 campaign management tools,
 </a>
 Additionally, in September 2022, the firm announced the beta launch of a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13458?industryIds=8">
 workflow automation feature
 </a>
 under its &ldquo;Campaigns by Pipedrive&rdquo; solution. In May 2023, the firm launched a developer hub, a centralized online app development platform to enable its technology partners and developers to build new app integrations for Pipedrive&rsquo;s marketplace.&nbsp;
 
 
 Pipedrive has four standard plans (Essential, Advanced, Professional, and Enterprise), allowing users to subscribe to customizable plans based on individual requirements for specific features. In May 2023, the firm also launched a &ldquo;Power best value plan&rdquo; to enable SMEs to meet the specific requirements needed to scale their business operations. As of March 2023, Pipedrive has more than 100,000 SME customers worldwide, with an employee headcount of over 800.
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In August 2023,
 
 Pipedrive 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21407">
 partnered with RapidVerify
 </a>
 to integrate the firm's identify verification solution to Pipedrive&rsquo;s CRM platform. The new integration is expected to provide real-time verification and help mitigate potential risks of fraud.
 
 
 Funding and financials&nbsp;
 
 
 In November 2020, Pipedrive received a majority investment from private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. While the amount of investment was not disclosed, it has resulted in Pipedrive achieving unicorn status, with an estimated valuation of USD 1.5 billion. The acquisition is expected to boost Pipedrive&rsquo;s expansion capabilities outside of the US and Europe, the most recent of which was China in mid-2020. Pipedrive would continue to operate as a separate entity from Vista. However, this partnership would help Pipedrive optimize its product portfolio and expand its customer base by continually investing in the company&rsquo;s go-to-Market engine.&nbsp;
 
 
 
</div>

Pipedrive

<div>
 
 Streak claims to be the only SME CRM app that integrates entirely within Gmail inboxes. It allows users to simultaneously create emails for mass mail, while maintaining a personal touch. It also has an email tracker and spreadsheet features.
 
</div>

Streak

Certain startups provide industry-specific solutions such as for hair salons and convenience stores

Provides cloud-based platforms and mobile access to CRM systems

This type of CRM facilitates smooth business operations, by focusing on the automation of three main areas: sales, marketing and after-sales service. It automates the customer record creation process and daily tasks such as scheduling meetings, transitioning leads and generating sales reports. These CRMs also include marketing automation tools for complex email marketing campaigns. Customer service is also automated by the provision of self-service options via phone or laptop. This type of CRM is particularly useful for businesses involving heavy customer interaction.

Copper

Recent Updates

Monthly News Summary (July 2023)

Copper launches integrations marketplace to extend its solutions capabilities

Copper integrates with QuotaPath to add sales commission automation

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