Tiny VC

Calm/Storm Ventures is a founder network and boutique venture capital firm that invests in solutions improving health and wellbeing. They invest in founders that change lives for the better. Calm/Storm Ventures believe in lifelong learning and personal growth, empowering entrepreneurs with unique access to successful founders.

Calm/Storm Ventures

Sequoia is a venture capital focused on energy, financial, enterprise, healthcare, internet, and mobile startups. The firm helps a small number of daring founders build legendary companies. It spurs them to push the boundaries of what’s possible. The firm seeks to invest in all sectors with a focus on energy, financials and financial services, healthcare and healthcare services, Internet, mobile, outsourcing, and technology.

Sequoia Capital

System.One is a pre-seed venture capital fund. They are based in Berlin, but have a global mindset and reach. Their purpose is to invest in exceptional founders who combine early technical ideas with a bold mission and major potential impact. Pre-seed simply means They like to get in first – product and tech risk are core to what they do, not a problem they seek to eliminate.

System.One

TQ Ventures LLC is a venture capital firm led by Schuster Tanger and Andrew Marks based in New York City.  The firm seeks out extraordinary founders across the software complex in businesses with durable competitive advantages. We’re involved in primarily business-to-business (B2B) models, but also some business-to-consumer (B2C) models.  Across our more than 80 global investments, we believe the differentiated support and networks we provide our founders have fueled our track record and our reputation. Founded in 2018, TQ now has around $1 billion under management and is currently investing out of our third $500m fund.  The TQ Ventures investment philosophy:  The overarching ethos of TQ Ventures is: Backing founders building the future. we judge all startups by the same simple rubric:  · Do the founders demonstrate exceptional talent and vision? · Are they solving a problem or delivering an experience that provides substantial value to customers? · Are there enough customers to constitute a large market? · Is there a compelling go-to-market motion to effectively reach those customers? · If successful, will the company have high margins, low capital intensity, scalability with minimal friction and low incremental costs and, crucially, durable competitive advantages? · Are we investing at a valuation that, if the business succeeds, will deliver returns exceeding our fund’s committed capital net of dilution?  Bottom-up Approach versus Thematic or Vertical-Focused  Our investment firm looks for opportunities across a wide range of industries and sectors, with a bottom-up business-model-driven approach. Current investments cover industries including:  · Infrastructure · Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning · Enterprise · Development Tools · Software as a Service (SaaS) · Consumer Tech · Fintech and Blockchain · Healthcare · Geography  While TQ is based in New York City, some of its team is in San Francisco. TQ has a strong presence in top American venture markets, such as the Bay Area and NYC, but also has invested prolifically in Europe, including CEE. Once in a while, TQ finds a business that fits its investment framework in an emerging market as well.  Our global reach helps TQ Ventures find the best possible businesses to invest with. TQ Ventures leadership team  The TQ Ventures team is led by Schuster Tanger and Andrew Marks, two NYC-based investors with backgrounds from some of the top investing firms globally. Schuster worked at Third Point (Dan Loeb) and Goldman Sachs (Special Situations Group with Josh Easterly), before breaking away to launch TQ Ventures in 2018. He was named in the 2013 Forbes 30 under 30.  Andrew was a managing director at Blue Ridge Capital and previously worked at Blackstone before launching TQ Ventures in 2018. Our team members include talented investment professionals Jana Iris (ex-Hashicorp), Alexis Vitenas (ex-sales), Elisabeth Rulke (Princeton physics), Finbarr Timbers (Midjourney, ex-DeepMind), Elliot Graebert (ex-Palantir) and Michael Kilberry (AI / ML Google).  TQ Venture success stories  With more than 80 portfolio companies under the TQ Ventures umbrella and our third investment fund well under way, TQ Ventures has a track record of successful partnerships. Recent TQ Venture partner companies include: · log10: An AI company based in San Francisco that offers large language model (LLMOps) support for machine learning applications. · nsave: A fintech company that brings secure banking to people from emerging economies. · Cleanlab: An AI firm that automates data science testing and repair to endeavor to make sure AI-derived data is error free. · Plenful: A healthcare software provider that makes pharmaceutical workflows more efficient using AI.  Partner with TQ Ventures  The team at TQ Ventures is always looking for emerging companies with a differentiated business model and an exciting outlook on the future. Our bottom-up generalist philosophy, enthusiasm for innovative businesses, and ability to help with B2B customer introductions make us the ideal investor for early-stage businesses on the rise.  To explore opportunities with T! Ventures LLC, please visit tqventures.com.  TQ Ventures FAQs  Who owns TQ Ventures? TQ Ventures is owned by partners Schuster Tanger and Andrew Marks. They co-founded the company in 2018 and now lead a team of investors overseeing 80 partner companies and over $1 Billion in investment funds.TQ is made up of external limited partners, but no external partners own any of the general partner.  What is TQ Ventures III? TQ Ventures III is the third vintage of TQ, a $500 million investment fund round complex operated by TQ Ventures. This portfolio took the overall funds managed by TQ Ventures to over $1 Billion. TQ Ventures III Early focuses on seed-stage companies while TQ Ventures III Growth focuses on Series B-stage companies.  What are the investment focus areas of TQ Ventures? While TQ Ventures is a generalist investment firm and operates in a wide spectrum of industry sectors and geographical locations, it does focus on early-stage investment, primarily seed through Series B. The firm believes in business-model-driven investments, with particular interest in durable competitive advantages.  What industries does TQ Ventures invest in? TQ Ventures is industry vertical agnostic. That means the investment firm invests in a wide range of industries, including fintech, healthcare, AI and machine learning, blockchain, crypto, and infrastructure.

TQ Ventures

Foreword Ventures is an early-stage micro fund backing startups throughout their initial chapters. Foreword commits to adding value far beyond the small checks they write by devoting time, reputation, and capital to clients' success. Foreword typically invests in the pre-seed and seed stages, but can also invest in Series A and beyond when there is an existing relationship with the founder or co-investor.

Foreword Ventures

Twain

Twain is a Germany-based AI-powered communication assistant designed to improve outreach efforts for sales and marketing teams. Leveraging AI, Twain aims to analyze and improve outreach messages. It assists in crafting engaging introductions, eliminating filler words, and emphasizing the importance of clear questions to prompt responses. Users can simply insert their outreach message into the editor and Twain provides real-time recommendations based on best practices.

Artificial intelligence is helping sales teams manage relationships and optimize the customer lifecycle.

Sales Engagement Platforms

Outreach is a sales execution platform designed to optimize and enhance sales processes across organizations. Its technology leverages AI and data-driven insights to improve sales performance, streamline workflows, and improve productivity. Its suite of solutions includesSales Engagement: Outreach provides tools to structure and automate sales outreach, ensuring that sales reps send timely, relevant messages to the right peopleDeal Management: The platform simplifies deal management by helping sales teams track deal progress, spot potential risks, and identify the best actions to maintain momentum and close dealsPipeline Management: Outreach offers comprehensive pipeline management features, including advanced forecasting and modeling capabilities to predict revenue needs and build more accurate forecastsConversation Intelligence: Powered by Kaia, a voice-based AI sales assistant, this feature analyzes sales conversations to provide actionable insights and coachingRep Coaching: Outreach supports real-time coaching by identifying skill gaps and providing feedback, which helps in enhancing the effectiveness of sales reps and aligning their activities with best practicesDeal Insights: The platform provides detailed insights into deal performance, helping sales teams understand why deals are won or lost and what actions are needed to increase success ratesMutual Action Plans: Outreach facilitates the creation of mutual action plans that align the sales team and the customer on the next steps, ensuring a clear path to closing dealsSales Forecasting: The platform uses AI to generate accurate sales forecasts, helping teams better plan and allocate resources based on predictive data and historical trends.The platform integrates with popular customer relationship management (CRM) platforms such as HubSpot, Salesforce, and LeanData. The company is deeply integrated with third-party apps to attract large enterprise customers and has a network of 1,200+ partners.&nbsp;Outreach's machine learning model claims to predict deal closure with 81% accuracy and recommends actions to keep deals on track by analyzing unique engagement signals from emails, calls, and meetings.The company also opted to bolster its product offering by acquiring revenue intelligence platform Canopy.io in October 2021. With this acquisition, Outreach strengthens its sales analytics and forecasting capabilities. Canopy.io will be the foundation of “Outreach Commit,” a new forecasting tool under Outreach’s suite of products. Key customers and partnershipsAs of August 2024, the platform served more than 6,000 companies, including Zoom, Databricks, ELSEVIER, Okta, and Siemens.In March 2023, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17465?industryIds=27">expanded its partnership with Snowflake, </a>a data platform, to introduce a new offering called “Outreach Data Sharing,” which enables organizations to connect Outreach's datasets with other enterprise data and improve sales cycle.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Outreach

Salesloft is an AI-powered revenue orchestration platform designed to improve sales performance and pipeline management. Its technology focuses on guiding go-to-market teams with data-driven insights to optimize customer interactions and engagement. The company offers a suite of products and capabilities, including Cadence for pipeline building, Conversations for insights and coaching, Deals for pipeline management and forecasting, Forecast for predicting sales outcomes, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12862">Rhythm</a> for task prioritization, and Drift for early engagement with in-market buyers.In February 2022, the company announced the launch of its four-tier <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8630">Technology Partner Program </a>to provide growth opportunities for its partner ecosystem. Additionally, Salesloft also announced the launch of its Market Development Fund, which aims to support the funding of partner programs and pipeline development and create awareness among the Salesloft ecosystem.&nbsp;Salesloft claims to help sales teams generate 322% more pipeline, advance and close deals 75% faster, and win 28% more deals using conversation intelligence.Salesloft has been active in the M&amp;A space. In July 2021, the company acquired InStereo, a sales strategy consulting firm. The acquisition of InStereo established Salesloft's focus on buyer engagement in sales and marketing campaigns. InStereo initially partnered with Salesloft in 2018 and had completed more than 150 client engagements for companies such as 3M (American multinational conglomerate), Cargill (global food company), and Pegasystems (American software company). In February 2024, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27169">acquired Drift,</a> a conversational B2B marketing platform, to improve its customer journey orchestration tools for B2B sales teams. Key customers and partnershipsAs of August 2024, the platform served more than 5,000 customers, including Google, 3M, IBM, LinkedIn, Cisco, and Dell.In August 2022, the firm <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12545">partnered with Highspot, </a>a sales coaching platform, to further streamline the client engagement process for sales teams.&nbsp;

Salesloft

People.ai is a revenue intelligence platform that uses AI-powered automation to help sales teams optimize their go-to-market (GTM) strategies by capturing and analyzing sales activities such as emails, meetings, and calls. People.ai's suite of solutions includes SalesAI for predictive insights, ClosePlan for deal qualification, and PeopleGlass for real-time visibility into account and opportunity activity, enabling teams to focus on the right accounts and buyers. The platform integrates with tools such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, and Zoom to automate data collection and deliver accurate and enriched insights that improve sales efficiency and effectiveness.In May 2023, the firm <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18990">launched AccountGPT, </a>an AI-driven enhancement to its account planning application that leverages GenAI and large language models (LLMs) to automate sections of account plans, including market research, by extracting data from publicly available sources such as company websites and earnings reports.People.ai claims to capture 1.8 million sales activities per hour, achieve 92% forecast accuracy, and increase net new customer meetings by 25%.Key customers and partnershipsAs of August 2024, its customers include Cisco, Okta, Verizon, Zoom, Five9, and Pluralsight.In July 2022, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11924">partnered with integrated solution provider Oracle, </a>to use AI-powered sales automation tool "Oracle Fusion Sales" to support its sales process.

People.ai

Revenue.io (formerly RingDNA) is an AI-powered sales execution platform designed to increase sales team productivity and efficiency. The platform leverages GenAI and integrates <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/2055">Salesforce</a> to centralize and streamline sales workflows, automate key tasks, and deliver real-time guidance and insights. Key products includeRingDNA: An AI-powered dialer that improves sales workflows with features like click-to-call, voicemail drop, and call recording while automating tasks and providing real-time call guidanceConversation AI: This solution provides real-time coaching, transcribes and analyzes calls, automates follow-up emails, and builds libraries of best practices to improve sales performanceGuided Selling: Provides real-time guidance through the sales process, automates cadences, prioritizes leads, and delivers personalized playbooks to ensure best practices are followedCallerDNA: Tracks the source of inbound calls, captures data, and routes calls to the appropriate repsMoments: Delivers real-time agent assistance for sales and customer support, providing on-the-spot guidance, objection handling, and automated follow-up tasks.Revenue.io integrates with a range of popular solutions, including D&amp;B, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, and HubSpot. Key customers and partnerships&nbsp;As of August 2024, its customers include Hewlett Packard, Amazon Web Services, Autodesk, SAP Concur, Lyft, and Twilio.

Revenue.io

Apollo.io (formerly known as ZenProspect) is a comprehensive sales platform that integrates sales intelligence and sales engagement functionalities. The platform’s products and services include&nbsp;1) Contact &amp; Account Search: Helps users find and qualify leads and companies using Apollo's Living Data Network to provide up-to-date B2B data on 275 million contacts and 73 million companies (as of August 2024)2) Scores &amp; Signals: Provides insights into lead engagement and company signals to prioritize outreach efforts3) Inbound Optimization: Enhances lead capture and qualification by optimizing inbound forms and processes4) Sales Engagement: Automates outbound sales activities, including email and phone outreach, to streamline prospecting and follow-ups5) Meetings: Assists in scheduling, preparing for, and following up on sales meetings6) Deal Management: Offers tools to manage and close deals with actionable insights and recommendations7) Conversation Intelligence: Records, tracks, and analyzes sales conversations to provide feedback and improve sales tactics8) Analytics: Provides detailed performance metrics to identify successful strategies and areas for improvement9) Coaching: Delivers actionable feedback to sales representatives to enhance their performance and effectiveness10) Workflow Engine: Automates repetitive tasks and processes to accelerate lead management and sales operations11) &nbsp;Enrich &amp; Cleanse: Syncs and enriches CRM data to maintain accuracy and completeness in customer information.The company was also a part of the Y Combinator (YC) Winter 2016 batch. Apollo.io generated USD 1 million in annual recurring revenue at YC and was profitable immediately. In August 2023, the company was valued at <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21434">USD 1.6 billion.&nbsp;</a>Key customers and partnershipsAs of August 2024, Apollo.io had served more than 1 million users across 500,000 companies, including Stripe, Census, customer.io, DocuSign, and AUTODESK.&nbsp;

Apollo.io

All in one platform which offers a variety of tools for sales collaboration and for optimizing the entire sales process.

Tools for recording & analyzing live sales calls over voice & video.

Tools used for automating routine sales functions to improve the efficiency of sales teams.

Tools for preparing & automating sales campaigns via email, SMS & other channels.

Tools for discovering & building customer and company databases to generate sales leads.

Tools for discovering & analyzing customer interactions for improving customer success.

Tools for preparing sales content & coaching sales teams to improve performance.

Tools used to continuously  improve the product experience by understanding customer pain points.

Companies that use GenAI as a core part of their product offering for sales engagement

AI/ML solutions automate and streamline sales processes by providing insights

Sales engagement platforms use personalization to enhance the effectiveness of sales outreach

Uses GenAI for tasks like lead generation, content personalization, sales forecasting, and customer segmentation

Sales workflow automation platforms provide solutions for distributed sales teams

Twain

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