The first acquisitions in the Sales Enablement space that I’m aware of being announced in COVID-19 times (See my earlier post):
Axiom Sales Kinetics axiomsaleskinetics.com @AxiomSales @justaskaxiom (AXIOM SFD axiomsfd.com @AXIOMSFD acquired!) 18-Jun-2020, Axiom Sales Kinetics announced major rebrand, restructuring & new product offering under the leadership of its founder & CEO, Bob Nicols, after an asset only purchase of Dallas-based AXIOM SFD (Axiom Sales Force Development) in February 2020. Their Salesforce.com apps used to improve sales coaching & sales training; on demand in real time. Since 2013 they used to create native sales enablement apps for Salesforce.com. Dallas, Texas / Jacksonville, FL.
7-May-2020, Conga conga.com @CongaHQ was acquired by Apttus which had been acquired by Thoma Bravo on Sep 4, 2018.
@Napp_dk acquired by @Templafy (announced 18-May-2020):
“Danish start-up Templafy announced that it plans to acquire Copenhagen-based B2B sales enablement platform Napp. The news comes after Templafy closed $25m in Series C funding at the end of April. […] Templafy […] aims to solve the problem of “document anarchy”, ensuring consistency across all of a company’s documents, presentations and emails. The start-up automates compliance in business documents, with the goal of eliminating wasted administrative time.”
Source: siliconrepublic
I’ve updated my airtable of 777 line items and my chart for the biggest players in Sales Enablement/Engagement related SaaS software.
Link 22-Feb-2021 Highspot raises USD $200M
“[…] Showpad, a Chicago and Belgium-based sales enablement company, […] confirmed to Chicago Inno that it laid off 52 employees […] 18 of which were based in the Windy City. The tech company said layoffs affected its Go To Market teams across its offices in Chicago, Belgium, London, Munich, San Francisco, Portland and Poland. About 400 employees remain at the company globally, 160 of which are in the Chicago office. “This decision was triggered by the economic downturn following the global spread of COVID-19,” said Showpad co-founder and CEO Pieterjan Bouten […] Over the last two years, Bouten said Showpad tripled its revenue and in 2019 alone, hired about 200 new employees. Showpad, which has 1,200 clients, typically sees annual revenue of more than $60 million, Bouten said. […] Showpad […] acquired LearnCore, a Chicago startup that made sales training software, for $50 million in 2018.”
Source: americaninno.com/chicago/inno-news-chicago/
13-Jan-2022, Highspot, a sales enablement platform that increases the performance of sales teams, raised $248M in Series F funding. Highspot’s post-money valuation is now $3.5Bn, which has quadrupled in the past two years. The company’s total funding is now $648M. New investors B Capital Group & D1 Capital Partners led the round with participation from existing investors: ICONIQ Growth, Madrona Venture Group, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire, & Tiger Global Management.
One metric in this space to watch now for COVID-19 impact is churn in SaaS; especially when you consider how many new customers you have to onboard for every 1% of your customers that don’t renew: Maybe double or triple the number that left needs to be onboarded to make up for lost revenue (depending on the account size)?
Please check the following numbers for yourself. I took them from this post from 4-May-2020: EBITDA margins in SaaS are terrible
On this blog I’m tracking SaleSphere GmbH which is a subsidiary of mVISE AG (See shares above) Germany mvise.de salesphere.com @SaleSphere_App SaaS product – mobile sales & field service solution. Digitises existing field work processes & simplifies administrative procedures. Quick access to relevant information & media – simplifies the presentation of product offers. Integrations: Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics (CRM), SAP (CRM), Pipedrive, SugarCRM, Vtiger, SAP Business By Design, Adobe Marketo, Citrix GoToWebinar. Some customers: BOSCH, Julius Meinl, MyHilda, Hoffmann Group, H&T Presspart, etc. HQ in Duesseldorf, NRW, Germany.
fision fisiononline.com @fisiononline Marketing Automation & Sales Enablement Cloud Platform. Minneapolis, MN, USA. Fision Corp OTCMKTS: FSSN
VERB verb.tech @VerbTech_Co (NASDAQ: VERB) business-focused interactive video Webinar, CRM, marketing, & sales enablement software applications. Verb CRM: Sales Enablement Platform. Send Product Samples from an App. Increase retention & revenue with a custom mobile app. Newport Beach, CA, USA. Sept. 10, 2020, VERB Technology Company, Inc. the maker of interactive video-based sales enablement applications, including interactive livestream eCommerce, webinar, CRM & marketing applications for entrepreneurs & enterprises, completed the acquisition of SoloFire (dba for Ascend Certification, LLC), provider of a sales enablement platform for the healthcare industry.
As always, Scott at chiefmartec.com has some great thinking on The paradox of simultaneous MarTech consolidation and expansion.
In the 12-May-2020 post MarTech app platform dynamics he took that a bit further. It is the first time I see all the different trends and buzzwords called out for contributing or taking away from the number of players in the MarTech market:
B2B Sales Enablement and Sales Tech SaaS 