Evergrowth, a Vilnius-based platform offering an AI-driven account-based sales solution, has secured €2 million in a pre-seed funding round, marking one of the largest of its kind in the Baltics.
Led by Impellent Ventures and Practica Capital, Evergrowth intends to use the investment to sustain a recruitment drive that will promote further development of the platform alongside European market expansion and an eventual US market entry.
“AI will take my job”
Like it or not, fear of the unknown is an innate human quality. A mechanism of self-preservation, often this instinct serves us well. However, when this fear of the unknown crosses into the realm of the irrational, reactions to the unknown can sometimes be unfounded.
We’ve seen this to be the case for well over a year now in regards to Artificial Intelligence. “AI will take my job” is an oversimplification of a reaction to the unknown. The simple fact of the matter is, AI will, and already is, change the course of human history, but no more, comparatively and in context, than that of the automobile, the steam engine, or even the wheel.
Evergrowth is an example of this change readily apparent. The company began life in 2014 as a B2B sales consultancy, and for close to a decade, business flourished. However, that all began to change on November 30, 2022. With the launch of ChatGPT, Everygrowth’s founders realised that the potential and power of AI were going to eat their lunch. And fast.
Scrapped and all-in
So with the writing on the wall, in early 2023 Evergrowth co-founder and CEO Jean-Baptiste Daguené began experimenting with OpenAI, seeking out possible integrations with Evergrowth’s existing solutions and how the technology could be used to augment and improve previously proven go-to-market strategies.
The results Daguené achieved allowed clients to do much more effective and efficient work, at a fraction of the financial cost and labour. So compelling were the results that what once was the consultancy business was scrapped and the decision was made to go all-in on a scalable SaaS solution.
On the origins and reasoning behind the decision, Daguené elaborates:
“2020-2022 was fueled by free money and a ‘grow at all costs’ mentality, and sadly, this drove many sales teams to scale in the wrong direction.
“Companies chose to mass-hire salespeople and double down on tools to make them more efficient instead of enabling them with customer-centric frameworks to help them understand their ideal customers’ needs.
“After a year of ‘hard resetting’ in 2023, where we saw a return to a ‘back-to-basics’ mentality, we predict that in 2024, sales professionals will be expected to do more with less. The solution to finding new ways to perform and create meaningful conversations with prospects is harnessing AI-enabled account-based framework to enable sales teams with super granular machine-powered research based on ICPs and personas definition.”
And this is precisely the challenge Evergrowth is addressing. Eschewing the traditional methods of hours and hours of manual research on individual accounts and their associated contacts, with Evergrowth’s AI solution, customers can do the same, if not more in minutes, all accompanied by insights and fully optimised messages, thus enabling sales teams to concentrate on higher value and more complex work, for example, further expanding a total addressable market.
As a point of proof, Evergrowth reports that it’s on track to hit $500,000 ARR within three months of its MVP launch.
On the investment, lead investor Impellent Ventures’ Phil Beauregard commented:
“Impellent has had a lot of inbound on the AI Sales Enablement side since OpenAI burst on to the scene, and we've been sitting on the sidelines due to a lack of conviction around differentiation of product and team.
“We were especially excited when we found Evergrowth in Lithuania, a dynamic founding team rife with product, go-to-market-chops, and major sales DNA that spans decades of experience implementing customer-centric sales strategies.
“The level of experience and expertise that each co-founder brings to the table in their respective domains left us convinced that this was the ‘dream team’ to create the future of AI sales. When we had the chance to lead this investment in a country we are coming to love and respect alongside a perennial stalwart like Practica Capital, we jumped at the opportunity.”
Lead image: The Evergrowth team. Photo: Uncredited.
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