27 Sep 2017 Klue Launches with $4M To Arm Sales with Better Competitive Intelligence
Vancouver, BC – Sept. 27, 2017: Klue announces $4 million in funding to arm enterprise sales and channel teams with competitive intelligence. Led by OMERS Ventures with participation from BDC Venture Capital, Vancouver Founder Fund, SK Ventures and angels including Ryan Holmes (CEO, Hootsuite), Jonathan Ehrlich (Partner, Foundation Capital) and Daniel Debow (former SVP Salesforce, CEO Helpful).
There is an explosion of information about companies scattered around the web and streams of content being shared by coworkers inside Slack, Salesforce, shared drives and email. Arming salespeople with relevant intel from the deluge of information is painful. Klue is tackling an underserved problem that every company faces: collecting, curating and distributing competitive intelligence. The platform combines information shared by co-workers with bot collected intel from across the web into battlecards and living dashboards of competitor activity.
Klue solves two problems enterprises face in the battle for sales. First, Klue helps product marketers and enablement teams create and keep competitive content up to date. Second, Klue helps salespeople find and leverage that content inside applications they use every day including Salesforce, Slack, Chrome (browser extension), and email.
The idea for Klue, founded by former President of Vision Critical, Jason Smith, and former Sophos Chief Technologist, Sarathy Naicker was born out of a shared problem both encountered in their previous roles.
“Where this really hits home is with B2B enterprise sales teams,” says Smith. “Thirty percent or more of deals are lost directly to a competitor. It stings to lose a deal that should have been won. Klue gives you a continuously updated lens into your competitors’ world so you can better position your company against your rivals, improve your sales strategies with prospects, and ultimately close more deals.”
Naicker believes the key to cracking sales in a hyper competitive marketplace is to use machine learning to unearth key insights that can’t be done on a human scale. “By applying a machine learning intermediary to help scale down the volume of content, and giving enablement teams the tools to deliver, intel is less noisy, more succinct and ultimately more digestible for sales teams to run with.”
“Klue is tackling a real pain point relating to information management, by showing how companies can turn data into an asset that sales teams can use to win deals,” said Sid Paquette, Managing Director, OMERS Ventures. “Jason has assembled a very strong team, complete with deep operational and entrepreneurial experience. We are thrilled to join them on their journey.”
Mid-to-large B2B enterprises including Adaptive Insights, Dell EMC, Hootsuite, Sage, Paychex, K2, Absolute Software, and DXC (spinout of HP) are already using Klue to win more deals.
About Klue
Competitive intelligence for enterprise sales. Klue helps enablement teams deliver battlecards and market intel to the field. It is a lens for enterprises into their competitors’ world, continuously updating and connecting dots to help them win more business. Product marketers and enablement teams leverage curated intel from inside their company and across the web to create and update content. Salespeople get access to relevant, digestible insight cards in the tools they use everyday.
About OMERS Ventures
OMERS Ventures is the venture capital investment arm of OMERS, one of Canada’s largest pension funds with over $85 billion in net assets. OMERS Ventures is a multi-stage investor in growth-oriented, disruptive technology companies across North America.
For More Information:
Katie Berg
Communications Director, Klue
katie@klue.com