BlueRun Ventures is a venture capital firm with offices in the United States, Shanghai, Beijing, and Korea. BlueRun invests in information technology, mobile, and consumer technologies, with an emphasis on mobile opportunities.  BRV has invested in over 160 companies, with select exits from PayPal (acquired by eBay), Waze (acquired by Google), Topsy (acquired by Apple), Coupa (NASDAQ: COUP), and more.  In 2005, BlueRun changed its name from Nokia Venture Partners. While branded as Nokia Venture Partners, the firm helped to build emerging market leaders such as Airgo, Bitfone, Cornice, PayPal, Wavemarket, and WiderThan.

BlueRun Ventures

Pelion Venture Partners helps entrepreneurs and invests in early-stage B2B software-based companies. Since 1986, Pelion Venture Partners has been helping entrepreneurs turn early-stage concepts into tomorrow's industry-leading companies. Pelion invests in early-stage B2B software across the US. With 7 investment team members, Pelion has deep and diverse industry and investment experience. They are hands-on in their approach and work collaboratively with each portfolio company.

Pelion Venture Partners

Altara Ventures aims to invest in the fintech, consumer, enterprise software, logistics, healthcare and edutech verticals.

Altara Ventures

FreeAgent CRM

FreeAgent is a complete CRM platform with robust work management. We help teams get everything in one place, work more collaboratively to get more done, and track and improve performance. Designed for the new world of work, remote teams thrive with complete visibility into day-to-day activity, real-time collaboration, and powerful code-free customization. By eliminating time spent searching for information and manual entry, FreeAgent empowers leaders to optimize sales, marketing, customer success, project management and more -- so every employee has workdays full of impact.

<div>FreeAgent CRM is a cloud-based CRM application that can be used for sales, marketing, and customer service. It integrates with social media and has a reminder system and internal chat feature to help teams collaborate with each other and drive revenue.</div>

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

SME CRM

<div>
 
 FreeAgent CRM is a cloud-based CRM application that can be used for sales, marketing, and customer service. It integrates with social media and has a reminder system and internal chat feature to help teams collaborate with each other and drive revenue.
 
 
 In April 2021, the company raised USD 12.6 million in a Series A funding round led by Pelion Ventures, with participation from Altara and BlueRun Ventures. The company intends to use the funds for product development and marketing. 
 
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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 &amp; 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), and 3) <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29885">Smart Design</a>, an AI-driven email creation tool which can generate branded email templates instantly (May 2024).&nbsp;Funding and financialsBenchmark Email raised USD 3 million in debt funding in January 2021 from Texas Capital Bank to execute on its M&amp;A activity.

Benchmark Email

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 partnershipsAs 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 &amp; financialsThe 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.

Insightly

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—which is a lead generation tool containing a database of around 400 million lead profiles, 10 million company profiles, and Web Visitors—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 “Campaigns by Pipedrive” 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’s marketplace.In .April 2024, it introduced <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/28961">Pipedrive AI </a>, a suite of AI tools including an AI-powered sales assistant, AI-generated email writing, AI email summarization, AI smart app recommendations, and an AI-powered Marketplace search.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 “Power best value plan” 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 partnershipsIn 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’s CRM platform. The new integration is expected to provide real-time verification and help mitigate potential risks of fraud.Funding and financialsIn 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’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’s go-to-Market engine.

Pipedrive

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.

Streak

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 partnershipsAs 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 financialsIn 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.

Copper

This type of CRM can also be known as Strategic CRM as it allows businesses to collect, organize and share valuable customer data among multiple teams across the company, which enables them to work coherently to increase customer lifetime value and thereby profitability. 
The two main aspects of Collaborative CRM are: 1) Interaction management, and 2) Channel management. The former allows businesses to analyze all customer interactions to proactively identify issues and resolve them efficiently. The latter enables businesses to identify and record the communication preferences of customers. This type of CRM is ideal for a business which has multiple departments and stakeholders, offices/branches in various locations and a heavy focus on customer data being transparent and easily accessible by everyone.

This type of CRM collates, stores and analyzes customer data, which includes basic information, marketing data, sales data and customer service records. Using this information, users can get a better idea of customer demand trends and purchase behaviour. Further, companies can track leads and identify which marketing campaigns generate the highest ROI. Sales data helps users identify which products/services are best sellers, seasonal trends, highest revenue generating sales representatives and most profitable locations. Moreover, service data helps businesses assess three main areas: customer service, customer satisfaction and employee performance. This type of CRM is ideal for companies which have sales processes driven by account management and end-users who value metrics and are encouraged by data transparency.

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.

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

Provides cloud-based platforms and mobile access to CRM systems

FreeAgent CRM

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