When George Avetisov was the founder and CEO of cybersecurity startup HYPR, he spent a variety of time within the trenches with the corporate’s gross sales group. He rapidly realized that no matter how good his gross sales group was, they had been constantly pulling in different departments to reply buyer questions or fill out technical questionnaires.
“They don’t know the solutions to most questions that get requested of them,” Avetisov instructed TechCrunch. “They must ask a product particular person, they’ve to drag in a gross sales engineer. It’s a frightening job, and these persons are sensible, like I’ve labored with some superb gross sales reps, however the issue with gross sales is there’s no simple manner for them to automate data.”
Avetisov (pictured above within the middle) determined that will be his subsequent downside to unravel. He left HYPR in 2021 and took a quick interlude from startups to play and beat online game Elden Ring; Avetisov mentioned he wished just a little downtime earlier than being all consumed by one other startup. He launched his new firm, 1up, in 2022.
1up is an AI-powered data automation platform for gross sales groups that pulls data from inner firm information sources and databases. Sales professionals can flip to 1up to seek out solutions to their product or technical questions, execute requests for proposal and in addition use it assist fill out technical questionnaires.
The firm launched publicly in January 2024 and has since amassed almost 100 prospects that vary from startups to massive enterprise prospects together with WalkMe and Deliveroo. The firm has been capable of land a not insignificant portion of those prospects by means of an unorthodox advertising and marketing technique: memes.
“We run one of many greatest gross sales meme libraries locally, and we get hundreds of thousands of impressions on LinkedIn,” Avetisov mentioned. “People comply with us simply from our memes. I do know it’s just a little bizarre, however like, one out of three of our leads comes from a meme.”
Now the corporate is saying a $5 million funding spherical led by Upfront Ventures with participation from RRE Ventures, 8-Bit Capital, and people like Friendster founder Jonathan Adams, amongst others. Upfront basic companion Kobie Fuller is the lead investor and can sit down on the corporate’s board.
Fuller instructed TechCrunch that he received a chilly e-mail from Avetisov simply days after one in every of his portfolio firms talked about 1up could be a superb match for Fuller’s funding thesis concerning how AI will change enterprise’s method to data. When speaking about this thesis to Avetisov, Fuller mentioned they had been talking the very same language.
“So a lot of how we make funding selections is across the founder and George, a second-time founder, noticed the issue and ache level first hand,” Fuller mentioned. “When we speak with George, he can dive in at no matter stage or depth in a manor you don’t see on a regular basis with CEOs. You can inform he’s mission pushed, he has 1up tattooed on his inside wrist. He’s actually, actually in it; he’s extremely scrappy.”
Since the discharge of ChatGPT in 2022, AI startups constructing for gross sales departments have exploded, particularly on the subject of constructing AI instruments that assist prospects generate gross sales leads and with consumer outreach. Companies trying to present data facilities for enterprises, lots of which popped up previous to 2022, began gaining momentum, too.
Avetisov isn’t deterred, although. He mentioned that 1up offers such a distinct service than the AI gross sales lead turbines that he doesn’t suppose 1up is competing for a similar line in an organization’s finances. He mentioned that he doesn’t suppose firms want all-encompassing data facilities, however 1up’s method is completely different as a result of it solves a selected downside.
“When you speak to the enterprise, data administration shouldn’t be a finances merchandise. It’s not a hair on fireplace downside,” Avetisov mentioned. “Our philosophy on that is that for data automation to succeed and turn out to be a billion-dollar firm or trade, it must be laser-focused on a persona and on a division.”
The subsequent steps for 1up, now that its raised this latest funding, is to scale out the gross sales group. There may also be some function upgrades, although Avetisov wasn’t able to share the main points on these fairly but.
“Sales groups get a variety of shit,” Avetisov mentioned. “They have one of many hardest jobs within the firm, and their software set is horrible. They’ve received so many instruments for prospecting and CRMs and all that stuff. But on the subject of data administration, they’ve been utterly uncared for. So that’s our sizzling take. That’s our laser focus.”
