Uman, a Belgian AI-driven software platform for B2B sales teams, has raised €1.9 million. The funding round was led by Holland Capital, together with existing investors imec and Seeder Fund. This is a pivotal moment for the Ghentian startup, as the investment will help scale the company’s international presence.
For Uman’s founders, these are challenging times for sales teams in B2B companies that operate with a broad and complex range of products and services. Customers’ expectations are sky-high, sales departments are facing shrinking budgets and on top of that, they often struggle to master that complex portfolio, resulting in lost opportunities.
This inspired founders Charles Boutens (CEO) and Sven Degroote (CTO) to build the sales AI agent uman. Thanks to smart data governance and generative AI, uman offers sales content and insights at the right times. This way, sales teams are able to meet up with clients with personalised pitches and offers, without having to do all that research and preparation manually. The promise of Uman is that this results in higher conversion rates, increased efficiency and more cross-sell opportunities.
Riding the AI sales wave
“The way most B2B companies do sales now, no longer delivers the right returns,” Boutens explained. “With the possibilities AI creates right now, we envisioned how this could be more effective and efficient. We spent a long time building uman, to make sure we got everything right – down to the last detail.”
Several Western European leaders in IT, consultancy and telecoms are already using the Uman’s AI agent, including Proximus, msg global and the Belgian media conglomerate DPG Media.
“We want to go to the next level and market uman to the right audience. Not only in Belgium by the way – we also already have several customers in the Netherlands and Germany,” Degroote commented. “Our focus currently remains Europe, but we definitely have the ambition to conquer the US as well.”
This investment has the aim to significantly boost Uman’s ongoing growth and product development efforts. “We are thrilled to support Uman during this exciting phase,” added Jorg van der Heijden, Partner at Holland Capital. “Uman’s innovative approach to sales enablement is already making waves in the industry, and we are confident that our partnership will help them reach new heights. We’re especially looking forward to further scaling the team and rolling this out internationally so we can enable sales teams across the globe to work more efficiently.”
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2024/08/ghent-based-uman-snaps-e1-9-million-to-disrupt-sales-enablement-market-with-ai-agent/
