The Rise of Sales Automation: Dooly Secures $20 Million in Funding

Robotic process automation (RPA) has significantly impacted the enterprise landscape, offering tools to streamline repetitive tasks. This allows employees to shift their focus towards more complex responsibilities. Now, a startup is extending this principle to the individualized work of sales teams, and has recently announced a new round of funding.

Introducing Dooly: AI-Powered Sales Workflow Automation

Dooly, a Vancouver, Canada-based company, has developed a suite of AI-based tools designed to automate the administrative tasks that often burden salespeople. Specifically, the platform focuses on simplifying data updates within sales software, most notably Salesforce. The company has raised $20 million to expand its operations.

The core objective of Dooly is to enhance the usability of sales software by minimizing the time spent on manual data entry.

“They’ve essentially created a vast collection of virtual filing cabinets,” explains Kris Hartvigsen, Dooly’s founder and CEO. “These cabinets simply await access—or, in the context of enterprise software, report generation and data input. We recognize that information is being captured throughout the organization, and our mission is to ensure that individuals and systems have a more efficient, rapid, and comprehensive means of staying informed.”

Funding Details and Key Investors

The $20 million in funding was raised in two stages, previously undisclosed. A $3.3 million seed round was spearheaded by Boldstart Ventures, with participation from BoxGroup. Subsequently, a $17 million Series A round was led by Addition, with continued investment from Boldstart and BoxGroup, alongside Battery Ventures, Mantis (representing The Chainsmokers), and SV Angel.

In addition to venture capital firms, several prominent individual investors have also contributed, including Daniel Dines and Brandon Deer of UiPath, Allison Pickens (ex-COO of Gainsight), Zander Lurie of SurveyMonkey, Jay Simons (former CEO of Atlassian), Harry Stebbings, and other unnamed investors. Ed Sim of Boldstart will be joining Dooly’s board of directors.

Addressing the Sales Productivity Challenge

Dooly addresses a critical challenge: while numerous tools assist salespeople in lead sourcing, sales management, and customer onboarding, they all require consistent data updates. Ironically, the proliferation of these tools increases the time salespeople spend on data input.

Salesforce itself reports that salespeople dedicate only 34% of their time to actual selling, with the remainder largely consumed by data entry tasks.

Dooly streamlines this process by allowing users to make notes that are automatically organized and populated into relevant applications, beginning with Salesforce.

“The ‘aha moment’ for users is immediate,” Hartvigsen states. “Whether they’re making quick pipeline adjustments or pushing notes to Salesforce, we don’t require them to learn new workflows. We simply automate tasks they dislike, often comparing them to routine clerical work.” He explains that syncing a note automatically updates Salesforce contacts, fields, to-dos, activities, and relevant Slack messages.

Integrations and Future Development

Currently, the product integrates with Slack, G-Cal, and G-Drive. Hartvigsen emphasizes the plan to expand integrations over time, focusing on systems that directly impact revenue teams.

The system is designed to offer a return on investment. Users typically spend between 2.5 and 5 hours daily utilizing Dooly, but Hartvigsen asserts that the platform ultimately saves users more time each week by boosting productivity. Pricing begins at $25 per user per month, scaling with features and usage.

A Competitive Landscape

While many products aim to assist salespeople, Dooly uniquely focuses on automating data input. Companies like UiPath and Salesforce, positioned on different sides of this issue, could potentially enter this space as they continue to grow. UiPath’s involvement through its founder and a senior executive suggests a potential collaborative relationship.

Other companies leveraging AI to enhance the sales process include Pipedrive, Clari, Seismic, Chorus.ai, and Gong, utilizing natural language processing, machine learning, and big data analytics.

Investor Perspectives

“We were immediately impressed by the Dooly team’s design-centric approach, which fostered significant customer satisfaction,” says Ed Sim, founder and managing partner at Boldstart Ventures. “This enthusiasm was evident not only in online ratings but also in the organic adoption within companies.”

Lee Fixel, founder of Addition, adds, “Dooly is dedicated to creating a user-friendly experience that enables customers to build seamless workflows and unlock new revenue opportunities. We are excited to support Dooly as it continues to grow and improve the sales function for businesses.”

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