A cool $1 million newly rests at the disposal of DC-based Contactually Inc. Is the money itself the story, or is it the plan for growth already in place by good answers to important questions? How will the money be spent? Why these investors? Why fundraise now?
It’s not surprising that a company like Contactually, which has been bringing traction to the idea that people are what really make you successful through strategically-timed relationship-focused contact management, had a clear idea of direction, who to engage, and timing in this latest round of investments. Zvi Band, one of the company’s founders, shed some light on their thought process.
How will the money be spent?
Currently, Contactually has three engineers and eight sales and support (70% District residents) on staff. Their API provides a clean data source for any third party application and automatically updates into services like Google Contacts, MailChimp, Highrise, SugarCRM, Pipedrive, and Salesforce using information from the user’s email and social services. It also suggests when a user should engage important relationship.
Going forward, the company plans on integrating with iPhone and Android, as well as voice services like Google Voice, and Skype. It will also be able to suggest WHAT a user should say.
Zvi explained, “Even thinking about what you should say takes valuable time out of your day. Whereas, a lot of the information can automatically be put together. Think about the amount of information available about your contacts in past email conversations, what they’re talking about online, and what their interests are. All of this stuff can be used right now, by humans via spending a lot of time thinking about what you should say. But the same thing can be done automatically. There are different ways you can follow up with someone. There are a lot better ways that you can talk to someone rather than sending them the normal, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ email. You could share a relevant article with them, You could provide them some kind of value for them like giving them a recommendation or sending helpful instructions. Those are the kinds of things that we’re going to be working on in the coming months.”
Why these investors?
The new investors, Point Nine Capital and Boston Seed Capital LLC, didn’t just bring the capital needed to scale. These specific firms add important value in the form of experience and knowledge in the software and service space. Point Nine and Boston Seed make good advisors in that they can offer guidance and teach the team important information related to the areas in which Contactually plans to expand. Investments from Contactually’s previous funding rounds were also continued.
Why now?
The strength of Contactually’s product and sales team had been proven by good growth in 2012. The company knew where their service was useful and where people would pay for it. A proven plan to scale with returns was in place.
Having a cool million is a pretty good feeling. Having a solid idea of what to do with it, who to engage on the deal, and executing in the right time frame, is even better.
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