Nektar.ai Secures $6M Funding for B2B Sales Collaboration

Nektar.ai Secures $6 Million in Seed Funding

For B2B sales teams, effectively managing information regarding potential deals presents a significant challenge. Sales professionals frequently utilize a variety of platforms – including email, Zoom, and WhatsApp – when communicating with buyer committees.

This process becomes particularly complex for remotely working sales teams. Nektar.ai, a B2B sales productivity startup, aims to address this issue by minimizing the time spent on manual data input and delivering analytics designed to boost revenue.

Investment Details

The Singapore-based company recently announced a $6 million seed funding round, spearheaded by B Capital Group. This investment will fuel the company’s growth and expansion plans.

Additional participants in the round included 3One4 Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, and several angel investors. These investors are Amit Midha, president of Asia Pacific and Japan at Dell; Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of OYO Hotels; Kevin Merritt, former president of Tyler Technologies’ data and insights division; Evan Davidson, SentinelOne’s vice president of Asia Pacific and Japan; Deep Nishar, senior managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers; and Tom Donlea, Ekata’s vice president and general manager of APAC.

Including a previous $2.15 million round led by Nexus Venture Partners in November 2020, Nektar.ai’s total seed funding now reaches $8.1 million. The company highlights this as one of the largest seed rounds secured by an Asia-based SaaS company.

Company Overview

Nektar.ai operates with a remote-first workforce, and reports that women comprise half of its team. The company was founded in 2020 by Abhijeet Vijayvergiya and Aravind Ravi Sulekha.

Since its inception, Nektar.ai has operated in stealth mode, collaborating with numerous clients in a private beta program. Currently, the company’s waitlist is open for sign-ups, with a public launch anticipated in the first half of 2022.

Addressing Sales Team Challenges

Nektar.ai is specifically designed for SaaS revenue teams that manage information across multiple channels. These include email, calendars, web conferencing platforms, Slack, CRM systems, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp.

This fragmented approach often hinders collaboration, adherence to established best practices, and a comprehensive understanding of the sales pipeline. Nektar.ai integrates with various applications, extracts crucial data, and delivers it to the team’s preferred collaboration tool, such as Slack.

Product Development and Features

Over the past six months, Nektar.ai has accelerated its product development in response to a growing demand for guided selling solutions. This resulted in onboarding over 200 prospects from its waitlist, as stated by Vijayvergiya.

The company has launched a web console for managers, a Chrome extension, and integrations with Salesforce, Google Workspace, and Slack. A key addition is the Capture Bot, an AI-powered system that automatically extracts vital information from sales interactions.

This feature consolidates data that would otherwise be dispersed across various inboxes and calendars, enhancing CRM accuracy and providing sales managers with insights into team engagement and deal progression.

Benefits for Sales Representatives

Nektar.ai’s tools empower individual sales representatives to reduce time spent on manual data entry. They also gain access to analytics, including multithreading scores, which help identify factors contributing to wins or losses.

For instance, one client discovered that deals were more likely to close when at least four contacts within the buyer committee were engaged after the demo stage. Consequently, their sales team prioritized engaging with more than four committee members for every potential deal.

Cost Savings and Efficiency

Nektar.ai also assists SaaS sales teams in saving both time and money by building databases of first-party contacts from existing inboxes. One client reportedly saved $50,000 by leveraging their current contacts instead of purchasing third-party data.

Investor Perspective

Gabe Greenbaum, general partner at B Capital Group, commented that Nektar.ai’s solutions offer significant value to distributed revenue teams, particularly as businesses expand globally. He expressed confidence in the leadership of Abhijeet, Aravind, and the Nektar.ai team, anticipating continued momentum towards industry leadership in enterprise sales productivity.