SiftHub, an AI startup based by the previous CTO and co-founder of LogiNext, Manisha Raisinghani, has raised $5.5 million in seed funding to construct out its AI assistant, which is aimed toward serving to gross sales and presales groups focus extra on constructing relationships and fewer on grunt work.
The corporate’s generative AI assistant is focusing on the majority of non-sales exercise that gross sales personnel need to cope with, like coming into knowledge into CRM methods, submitting requests for proposals (RFPs), researching buyer information and constructing presentation decks. SiftHub integrates with sources of data like Google Drive, Slack, Zendesk, HubSpot and Salesforce, and gross sales and presales groups can merely discuss to its AI assistant to finish infosec questionnaires, vendor evaluation varieties, and file RFPs and request for info (RFI) varieties. The assistant is on the market by way of Slack and Microsoft Groups as a bot, as a Microsoft add-in, a Chrome plugin, and an internet app, and has help for 10 languages, together with Spanish and German.
“When salespeople are promoting to companies, they need to be spending extra time constructing relationships, which has a direct impression on the highest line,” Raisinghani advised Trendster. “While you don’t have to rent so many presales folks to do the deep technical be just right for you, you’re saving time and that impacts your backside line,” she advised Trendster.
SiftHub’s AI assistant is constructed on open-source giant language fashions (LLMs), and is supported by retrieval augmented technology (RAG) expertise, which makes use of further knowledge sources to fine-tune the standard of content material generated by AI. Utilizing RAG on prime of LLMs helps SiftHub restrict hallucinations — a typical difficulty with generative AI, the place the system generates incorrect or deceptive outcomes. The startup additionally makes use of cross-encoders to forestall its platform from choosing the unsuitable info from a given data base. Cross-encoders analyze two queries concurrently, as a substitute of every individually, to ship extra correct solutions.
“We might fairly not give a solution fairly than give the unsuitable reply,” Raisinghani stated. The founder added that SiftHub’s system may give 5% fewer solutions, however she is assured that at the least 75% of the AI’s responses might be appropriate.
SiftHub additionally makes use of a “sensible search algorithm” that considers the recency of paperwork or data sources to floor related latest info, Raisinghani stated.
After spending over 10 years at LogiNext, Raisinghani noticed the necessity for an answer like SiftHub when she was advising blockchain startup Polygon Labs in 2022 on its enterprise go-to-market technique. She realized that discovering details about Polygon was an arduous job as a result of knowledge was not out there by way of a single channel, because it was saved throughout a number of platforms. Gross sales and presales folks want a whole lot of information about their firm and its enterprise operations once they attain out to their potential prospects. Discovering that information by way of totally different sources, together with the corporate’s Slack channels and different unorganized documentation, is a cumbersome job that may take a whole lot of time.
She then spoke with about 200 customers to grasp the issue assertion higher and categorize their responses into totally different use circumstances. All that ultimately introduced her focus to gross sales and presales groups.
“Gross sales groups have a shadow group — a presales group or options engineers — and they’re often the unsung heroes of the group. They do a whole lot of the technical work, proper from submitting RFPs (request for proposals) to discovering solutions to prospects’ questions,” she defined. “In case you’re saving time for each gross sales and presales, salespeople will mechanically be capable to spend extra time on relationship constructing.”
The marketplace for AI startups specializing in gross sales and presales operations has gained traction prior to now 12 months since generative AI took off. Firms throughout the spectrum, from giants like Salesforce, Zoom and Google to startups like Quilt, Folks.ai, and Darwin AI have constructed GenAI-powered instruments to let salespeople simplify a big selection of duties like submitting routine varieties, producing drafts for emails, filling up CRMs with publicly out there info on prospects, generate copy, get recommendations on which potential buyer is probably going to purchase or churn, and way more.
Nonetheless, Raisinghani believes that SiftHub has a particular edge, because it sits deeper in prospects’ enterprise workflows and might resolve your entire gross sales response downside — in contrast to a “wrapper round OpenAI or some other LLM.”
The startup can also be banking on Raisinghani’s personal expertise in scaling startups and its group of 15, which incorporates some ex-entrepreneurs. “While you’re going to offer at the least 10 years of your life to one thing, you wish to be certain that you will be excited and also you really consider in it for the subsequent decade,” she stated. The corporate is headquartered within the U.S., and has an R&D group in Mumbai, India.
The funding might be used to rent extra folks in product R&D, improve the product, and assist the corporate go to market. The seed spherical was co-led by Matrix Companions India and Blume Ventures, with participation from Neon Fund in addition to executives and founders from Superhuman, Cloudflare, DevRev, RazorPay and SuperOps.
SiftHub is initially focusing on B2B firms promoting to mid-market and enterprise prospects with revenues between $50 million and $500 million. The AI assistant is at the moment out there to a small group of customers for early suggestions, and the startup is planning a “full-blown launch” later this 12 months.
“Patrons have grow to be smarter and interact gross sales later within the shopping for journey, with extra superior questions. Consequently, the expectation from gross sales groups has modified — they should know superior product, technical, and authorized info to get the win. Gross sales and presales groups lack the mandatory tooling to deal with this new promoting setting. We’re excited by SiftHub’s imaginative and prescient to make use of AI to handle product data in order that gross sales can deal with relationships,” stated Pranay Desai, a companion at Matrix Companions India, in a ready assertion.
“SiftHub is Manisha’s second enterprise within the SaaS area. Armed with over a decade of entrepreneurial expertise and a powerful monitor file, Manisha and her group are constructing a game-changing AI platform to rework your entire gross sales and presales course of. We’re excited to again the SiftHub group and be part of their formidable journey,” stated Sanjay Nath, a companion at Blume Ventures.