About State of Mind Ventures State of Mind Ventures is a seed and early growth stage venture capital fund, focusing on the people that drive our world forward. We are looking for founders that are daring, hungry, and have big ambitions. We look to partner early with innovative teams of over-achievers, and be there with them, as they shape their vision, build their teams and accelerate to hyper-growth. So we believe our role is simple. It is to find and empower the founders of the future.

State of Mind Ventures

Ground Up Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm investing in pre-seed and seed stage startups in the United States and Israel.

Ground Up Ventures

SellX

SellX is a sales platform that gives businesses on-demand access to and collaboration with top sales talent. It includes integrated sales and marketing tools for tracking performance, automating workflows, and managing payments. Companies can acquire customers by launching customizable campaigns to a network of top-performing sales reps in order to generate and qualify leads through SellX.

<div>SellX is a platform that connects businesses with remote sales development representatives (SDRs) and business development representatives (BDRs). The platform also includes sales, marketing, and analytics tools that can help businesses track performance, automate workflows, and manage payments. The company claims that sales representatives who have been accepted to SellX's program have made upwards of USD 2,000 per week, with the company offering perks such as premium healthcare discounts and bonuses. To be accepted, reps must have experience with lead generation and warm and cold outreach, among other sales skills. In June 2022, SellX expanded its sales platform and talent marketplace to Canada.</div>

The on-demand economy has finally reached white collar work.

Online Freelancing Platforms

SellX is a campaign automation solutions provider that offers a comprehensive solution to launch personalized campaigns for sales teams. The platform features a power dialer, bulk emailer, advanced lead tracking features, customer segmentation, campaign automation, campaign analytics, and reporting. It also offers a talent marketplace powered by AI matching and sales representative criteria functionality to connect organizations with the sales workforce. The proprietary solution is integrated with a suite of tools including Salesforce, Hubspot, Calendly, Chili Piper, and Google to deliver automated workflows, sales performance tracking, and payment management.

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

Sales Engagement Platforms

Introducing SellX, the On-Demand Sales Engine Solving the Growing Talent Crisis for Companies Looking to Scale Fast

<div>
 
 SellX is a platform that connects businesses with remote sales development representatives (SDRs) and business development representatives (BDRs). The platform also includes sales, marketing, and analytics tools that can help businesses track performance, automate workflows, and manage payments. The company claims that sales representatives who have been accepted to SellX's program have made upwards of USD 2,000 per week, with the company offering perks such as premium healthcare discounts and bonuses. To be accepted, reps must have experience with lead generation and warm and cold outreach, among other sales skills. In June 2022, SellX expanded its sales platform and talent marketplace to Canada.
 
 
 Its monthly platform pricing starts at USD 229 per seat and decreases for a larger number of seat orders.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of April 2022, SellX claimed the companies using its platform have generated a sales pipeline of over USD 60 million within a few months. SellX is used by over 150 companies including Deel, Uber, Amazon, Swimply, and SAP, as of April 2022.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 SellX publicly launched in
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9871">
 
 April 2022
 </a>
 and raised USD 2 million in funding from GroundUp and State of Mind Ventures.
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Tempo is a UK-based platform connecting businesses to local freelancers. The company is currently based in London and Manchester.
 
 
 The company claims it can significantly lower hiring lead time and cut recruitment costs by 65%. As of February 2022, the platform has worked with 2,500+ clients in sectors such as financial services, software, and e-commerce. The platform has a pool of 80,000 candidates up for permanent and temporary roles.
 
 
 The platform’s most recent funding came in June 2020 when it raised its Series A extension worth USD 6.4 million led by industry incumbent The Adecco Group. The fresh capital will be used to fuel its expansion across the UK and boost hiring from 35 to 50 team members in 2020.
 
</div>

Tempo

<div>
 
 Textbroker is a platform for creative writing freelancers to connect with businesses. Textbroker freelancers work on projects such as social media posts, news stories, and blog posts. The platform provides content in over 35 languages, while connecting businesses with freelancers in the target country.
 
 
 As of October 2020, the platform served over 80,000 clients and has processed over 10 million orders. The platform's pricing starts at USD 1.5 cents per word and serves clients including Ebay and Staples.
 
</div>

Textbroker

Procurement Freelancers provides freelancers for procurement functions such as sourcing/category management, quality control and assurance, and advisory.The platform is free to use for freelancers, while clients purchase subscriptions to hire and manage freelancers at no added cost.In March 2019, the company acquired Dragon Sourcing, a procurement and sourcing service provider.

Procurement Freelancers

<div>
 
 Kolabtree is a UK-based freelancer marketplace connecting businesses and scientists. The platform provides businesses with skills such as data analysis, product development, scientific consulting, desk research, and other science related services within 24 hours of receiving business requests.
 
 
 As of September 2020, the platform had a pool of over 15,000 freelancers (across 170+ countries) qualified in over 2,000 scientific disciplines. In addition, the company has worked with over 3,500 businesses over the past three years and has 8,000 active users. 
 
</div>

kolabtree

Codersera is a freelance marketplace for businesses seeking developers. The company claims to provide the top 1% of developers through its five tier vetting process. The platform’s freelancers cover a spectrum of developer and data science technologies such as iOS, Android, Python, and Java.

Codersera Inc

Platforms that provide expertise in specialized areas such as law, scientific research, and construction.

Platforms that provide expertise in writing, translation, and editing.

Platforms that provide marketing expertise across email, SEO, and social media marketing functions.

Platforms that offer expertise related to web, mobile and software development with freelance developers fluent across major programming languages.


Platforms that focus on offering expertise in design and creative functions such as photography, video editing, and animation.

Platforms that offer expertise across multiple verticals such as design and creative, web, mobile and software development, finance, and marketing.

Solutions use AI/Ml for to match freelancers with clients and to vet freelancers

Some solutions introduced by players in this hub are using a B2B SaaS model

SellX is a campaign automation solutions provider that offers a comprehensive solution to launch personalized campaigns for sales teams. The platform features a power dialer, bulk emailer, advanced lead tracking features, customer segmentation, campaign automation, campaign analytics, and reporting. It also offers a talent marketplace powered by AI matching and sales representative criteria functionality to connect organizations with the sales workforce. The proprietary solution is integrated with a suite of tools including Salesforce, Hubspot, Calendly, Chili Piper, and Google to deliver automated workflows, sales performance tracking, and payment management.The platform claims to increase sales team productivity by 12%, thereby, increasing cost-effectiveness by 50%. Additionally, the firm guarantees that all sales candidates have complied with SellX’s vetting process prior to gaining access to its corporate network (marketplace) and claims to have the top 1% of sales talent.Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2022, it served more than 150 companies including Deel, Swimply, and Sunday.In April 2022, the company announced the launch of its platform and raised <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9986">USD 2 million in seed </a>funding from GroundUp and State of Mind Ventures.

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

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

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

Sales workflow automation platforms provide solutions for distributed sales teams

SellX

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