ZenIQ, an AI-based Account-Based Marketing (ABM) solution, secured $4.6 million in seed funding in a round led by Costanoa Ventures with participation from Salesforce Ventures.
“Costanoa is no stranger to Account-Based Marketing with investments in ABM names such as Demandbase. This investment in ZenIQ comes at a time when marketers are looking for direction on where to place their bets in Account-Based Marketing technologies,” stated Greg Sands, Founder and Managing Partner, Costanoa Ventures.
During the 18-month journey to bagging this investment, Srihari Kumar, founder, and CEO of ZenIQ, met many investors and highlighted few key learning in his blog. Kumar said, “Even as the average purchase decision involves 6 channels, and two-thirds of buyers leave frustrated by an inconsistent experience, most organizations continue with an uncoordinated approach. The sales and marketing gap is the result of disconnected platforms, data and insight – only 38% of orgs can target a new versus returning prospect, and only 13% can deliver a segmented experience and measure the results.”
ZenIQ’s Sales and Marketing Alignment SmartPlay is a powerful tool that bridges this gap for revenue generation that focuses on the right accounts and the right people.
“The ability to orchestrate data, targeting, and actions is the next stage of account-based strategies,” Kumar said. He highlighted the work it is doing with Bombora to automate actions around external intent signals.
The ZenIQ platform aligns messages shown across channels, whether it be email, display ads, retargeting, or phone, based on intent demonstrated on customer or 3rd party website. It recommends new and relevant people whose engagement is important for pipeline acceleration. In addition, ZenIQ’s ABM solution identifies the pre-pipeline accounts with declining and increasing engagement to recommend actions for engaging each person in the account. Based on historical analysis of current customers it also determines ways to upsell to them.
Jason Hekl, former SiriusDecisions’ analyst who was on the team that first popularized the term Account-Based Marketing, is happy to see ZenIQ leading the transformation of marketing. Hekl said, “I have been waiting for 10 years for something like ZenIQ. It enables targeted, high-impact marketing in a way that puts it at the vanguard of marketing technologies.”
ZenIQ’s ABM solution is used by companies like Ayla Networks, CallidusCloud, Cloudera, HG Data, Host Analytics, Infoblox and Tipalti. It offers a free trial for Salesforce and Pardot customers.