Starfish Ventures is a venture capital firm. That specializes in seed, start-up, expansion, emerging growth, early venture, mid venture, late venture, growth capital, middle market, and buyouts investments. The company prefers to invests in life sciences, clean technology, materials science, and information technology. Within life sciences, it focuses on biotechnology, medical devices, therapeutics, and drug development. Within clean technology, the firm invests in energy, water, and other environmental technologies. Within information technology, it considers investments in software, mobile, Internet and cloud based enterprise systems, semiconductor, instrumentation, hardware, and telecommunications.  It seeks to exit its investments through mergers and acquisitions, trade sale, or an initial public offer within two to five years. Starfish Ventures was founded by John Dyson and Michael Panaccio in 2001, and is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia.

Starfish Ventures

Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) has a distinguished track record of fostering innovation and building market leaders. For more than 60 years, Safeguard has been providing growth capital and operational support to entrepreneurs across an evolving spectrum of industries. Today, Safeguard is focused specifically on healthcare and technology. Safeguard is a proven partner for entrepreneurs looking to accelerate growth and build long-term value in their businesses. Investors in NYSE:SFE have a unique opportunity to tap into the high potential of Safeguard's early- and growth-stage partners companies.

Safeguard Scientifics

Leerink Transformation Partners is focused on growth equity investments in privately held innovative companies in the healthcare technology & services sectors.

Leerink Transformation Partners

Founded in 2015, dRx Capital is Novartis' Digital Health Venture Fund investing in entrepreneurs transforming healthcare through data and digital technology. The fund invests in technology platforms improving access to healthcare and reimagining the practice of medicine, with a focus on AI & ML, big data, R&D optimization, patient care, and pharma supply chain and commercialization.

dRx Capital

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

Transformation Capital is the successor management company to Leerink Transformation Partners LLC (“LTP”).11  LTP was founded in 2016 by Todd Cozzens and Jared Kesselheim, MD together with SVB Leerink Capital LLC (formerly Leerink Capital Partners LLC) (“Leerink Capital”), an affiliate of SVB Leerink LLC (“Leerink”), a leading healthcare investment bank.  Leerink Capital provided seed capital to Fund I (approximately 3% of capital commitments) and operational support. In January 2019, SVB Financial Group (“SVB”), the holding company of Silicon Valley Bank, a U.S.-based high-tech commercial bank, acquired the Leerink businesses including Leerink Capital.  Todd Cozzens, Jared Kesselheim, MD, and SVB expect to agree to a mutually beneficial ongoing relationship in which Transformation Capital (as an independent management company owned by Todd Cozzens, Jared Kesselheim, MD, and Michael Dixon and not affiliated with SVB or Leerink Capital) shall manage Fund II and whereby Transformation Capital shall manage Fund I’s investment portfolio pursuant to a sub-advisory agreement with SVB (or an affiliate).  Transformation Capital has the same operational leader, Kevin Brown, formerly CFO of Leerink Capital, and Transformation Capital expects to continue to derive benefits from its ongoing relationship with Leerink and SVB.

Transformation Capital

Aktana

Aktana helps life science companies get the most out of artificial intelligence for commercializing their products. Its platform harnesses machine learning algorithms to enable marketing and sales teams to optimize their engagement with prescribing physicians. Aktana supports more than 100 brands and more than half the top 20 pharmaceutical companies worldwide to increase revenue, capitalize on data investments, and drive channel productivity and results.  The company’s focus on the life sciences market allows Aktana to understand and incorporate unique market dynamics more deeply than the major AI players. Headquartered in San Francisco, Aktana also has offices in New York, Philadelphia, London, Barcelona, Tokyo, Osaka, and Shanghai.

Aktana specializes in providing data and intelligence solutions for life sciences industries. Aktana offers the "Contextual Intelligence 360," a modular sales intelligence platform, to scale AI-driven programs that personalize the customer engagement process for life science commercial teams. Its contextual intelligence engine (CIE) uses machine learning (ML) algorithms to plan and arrange multichannel interactions with healthcare providers (HCPs). The platform also features personalized next-best-action recommendations, customer journey mapping tools, automated workflows, a template library, and analytics and reporting. Additionally, it has native integration with customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation platforms (MAP) as well as an API for custom integration.

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

Sales Engagement Platforms

Aktana Announces First-To-Market GenAI Agents That Survive CRM Transitions

Aktana specializes in providing data and intelligence solutions for life sciences industries. Aktana offers the "Contextual Intelligence 360," a modular sales intelligence platform, to scale AI-driven programs that personalize the customer engagement process for life science commercial teams. Its contextual intelligence engine (CIE) uses machine learning (ML) algorithms to plan and arrange multichannel interactions with healthcare providers (HCPs). The platform also features personalized next-best-action recommendations, customer journey mapping tools, automated workflows, a template library, and analytics and reporting. Additionally, it has native integration with customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation platforms (MAP) as well as an API for custom integration.The company claims that its solutions improved sales growth by 14% during the indication launch for an innovative oncology drug and a 10% increase in goal attainment for primary care representatives carrying multiple products.In October 2021, The company acquired Ople.AI, a predictive analytics platform, to increase the use and adoption of AI, particularly among developing or mid-market businesses. In November 2023, Aktana acquired Tact.ai, a field engagement and conversational AI platform, to further strengthen its solution.Key customers and partnershipsBy December 2022, it had served 700,000 users across 300+ brands, including over half of the top 20 pharmaceutical firms in the world, such as Pfizer, Janssen, Merck, and Novartis.In September 2022, the company entered into a strategic partnership with Envision Pharma Group, a comprehensive global medical communications group, to provide personalized solutions that blend Envision's scientific expertise and Aktana's intelligence platform for medical affairs teams.

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

Aktana

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