Today German-US startup Demodesk, the startup revolutionising how online sales and customer meetings are held, has raised €6.7 million in its latest funding round, led by Balderton Capital.
Demodesk’s vision is to enable great customer conversations and make the most out of every online interaction. Having found a scalable solution to the clunky, often frustrating and limited screen-sharing tools available in regular video and conference calls, Demodesk has built the world’s first intelligent online meeting tool for inside sales and customer service teams. One that helps inside sales and customer success teams close more deals, faster.
As an increasing number of sales teams switch exclusively to remote working, particularly businesses that rely on field sales, it has accelerated the need for an efficient, intuitive and an advanced alternative to basic video conferencing. In 2020 to date, Demodesk has seen its customer base double, in response to this need, and today more than 150 customers across Europe and the US (such as Treatwell, Personio, and Forto) use Demodesk to close deals.
This includes a US-based customer who, before lockdown, had exclusively sold solar panels door-to-door and now closes deals via Demodesk, plus a furniture store in Germany that uses Demodesk to give customers live, virtual tours of its showroom.
Demodesk’s online meeting tool assists sales reps in real-time, automates scheduling and CRM logging and provides next-level analytics. While traditional tools simply record a video of the presenter’s local desktop screen, Demodesk offers a 100% web-based virtual display, entirely independent from the presenter’s local desktop. This disruptive technology makes sales demos truly multi-player rather than one-way presentations.
What’s more, Demodesk is entirely browser-based meaning it works with any device, without lag, and requires no downloads or regular software updates to operate. This has the added benefit of being highly secure and fully encrypted; confidential data can be shared without risk or threat.
Anyone on the call can interact with the website or software being shared on this virtual display, as if the page was on their own screen. For sales teams, Demodesk automatically loads the right slides and websites ahead of the meeting, provides real-time conversational guidance along with playbooks – all designed to help sales reps be as efficient and effective as possible. For customer service teams, Demodesk enables reps to instantly share mouse and keyboard control and collaboratively work with customers.
This latest round of funding, led by Balderton with participation from Target Global and Funders Club, takes the total raised by the Munich-based startup to around €8.7 million since 2017. This funding will be used to further develop Demodesk’s market-leading technology, scale its operations and hire the very best in new talent.
“Demodesk has resonated with sales teams globally – across many sectors and industries – because it strips back sales meetings to their core; letting reps get to the heart of what they love doing,” CEO and co-founder Veronika Riederle said. “By removing the barriers of unnecessary downloads, lags, compatibility issues and restricted screen sharing, we help teams increase productivity and conversion rates. Demodesk automates sales coaching and training and cuts down time spent on manual preparation, scheduling and documentation workflows.”
Riederle founded the company with CTO Alex Popp in 2017 and the team is located in offices in Munich and San Francisco, plus remote workers.
James Wise, Partnerat Balderton said: “Veronika has solved one of the biggest pain points of online sales meetings by capturing the very essence of what a sales meeting is really about – interacting with customers. Demodesk sits at the intersection of two big shifts, tailored video applications and more data-driven sales. While tools like Zoom and Teams have proven themselves to be essential, we are now seeing the rise of specific applications for different video use cases, and Demodesk is perfectly made for sales calls and demos. Secondly, just as new technologies are helping marketeers move from ‘mad-men’ to ‘moneyball’, we hope Demodesk can become part of a wave of new tools, from Salesforce to Gong, that are helping salespeople do their job more efficiently and effectively, as the sales profession becomes less Del-boy and more data scientist.”
Demodesk was a member of the Y Combinator Winter 2019 cohort and previous investors include GFC, FundersClub, Kleiner Perkins and angel investors.
