Series A
Sales platform Highspot has closed a $9.6 million Series A financing round led by Madrona Venture Group. The company’s cloud –based offering helps customers to engage with customers more effectively. “If you want to succeed in sales and marketing you need to get inside the mind of your customer. Today that is very hard to do,” Highspot co-founder and CEO Robert Wahbe said. “With Highspot, we can tell you the information that is resonating with your customer and pinpoint how they are using it. That gives marketing and sales organizations a crucial edge as they compete for the time and attention of ever busier customers.”
Series B
Mobile sales acceleration platform Showpad has raised $8.5 million in Series B funding. Dawn Capital led the round, while Hummingbird Ventures, a previous investor, also participated. The company will use the funds to grow its sales and marketing. Showpad, funded three years ago, reports annual recurring revenue of $4.5 million, according to a press release. “Sales are tired of the traditional approach to selling. Many companies are looking for technology to shorten sales cycles, close more business and accelerate their sales. Showpad makes sure sales find the right content, tell the right story and optimize the conversation. The demand for our solution is huge, so the timing of this round is just perfect to strengthen that momentum”, said Pieterjan Bouten, co-founder and CEO.
Funding
Confluent, which aims to provide commercial tools for the open source software Apache Kafka, has launched with $6.9 million in funding led by Benchmark Capital. LinkedIn and Data Collective also participated in the round. The company was founded by former LinkedIn staff Jay Kreps, Neha Narkhede and Jun Rao, who built Apache Kafka while working for the social network. Apache Kafka is used by organizations to manage and analyze data across their businesses.