By Polina Fomenkova, PR writer at F1V
Startup AiSDR, which uses AI to automate sales prospecting, has raised a $3M seed round, including from Flyer One Ventures and Y Combinator.
Other investors are Rebel Fund, SID Venture Partners, Pioneer Fund, Rahul Mehta (managing partner at DST Global), SCM Advisors, Bluepointe Ventures, Matt MacInnis (COO of Rippling), Terrence Rohan (investor in Figma, Notion), and Nick Bilogorskiy (managing partner at 408 Ventures).
Here are three reasons why Flyer One Ventures invested in AiSDR.
Reason #1. Founders: 2x Y Combinator alums with 1 exit
Founders Yuriy Zaremba and Oleg Zaremba have already sold one company — their previous startup AXDRAFT (to Onit in 2020).
They grew AXDRAFT from $0 to $2M through founder-led sales and managed a $10 million ARR business line for Onit, where Yuriy led sales teams after the acquisition.
With 6 years in sales, Yuriy knows the market AiSDR is catering to from the inside out. Oleg, in turn, was a senior software engineer at Booking.com before AXDRAFT and is AiSDR’s tech whiz.
Y Combinator has selected the brothers twice for its acceleration program, with AXDRAFT and now with AiSDR.
For VCs who invest in early-stage startups, having founders with a successful exit, a vast network, and such a strong founder-market fit. They know how to build a business in this market and they know how to sell it.
Reason #2. Nearly 50 clients already and plans to reach $2M ARR within a year
In just a week after its inception, AiSDR had over 200 demos booked. Four months after its public launch in August, AiSDR is already working with 41 clients, the majority of whom are B2B businesses.
AiSDR’s clients have already used its AI tool to communicate with potential customers from Goldman Sachs, Nike, PepsiCo, Nestle, and other big names.
The software supports multiple languages; the startup operates not only in the U.S. but has customers in Germany, Denmark, and the U.K.
The startup plans to reach $2 million in ARR within 12 months. The average monthly revenue growth rate is 65%, which is impressively fast, especially for B2B companies.
Reason #3. $50B market that needs automation
AI market size reached $242 billion and is expected to show an annual growth rate of 17.30%, according to Statista. And after the release of ChatGPT, there is more interest from investors and large corporations in AI than ever. As of the end of Q3 2023, European and U.S. AI companies had raised 48 rounds of $100 million or more, Atomico reports.
At the same time, there are about 600,000 SDRs in the U.S., and American companies spend nearly $50 billion annually on these specialists.
It’s a huge market and there’s much to automate in it: SDRs in the U.S. and Canada spend 38% of their time on administrative duties and updating their CRMs (19% on each activity). According to McKinsey, lead identification and personalized outreach are poised to be the most impacted by AI.
Publicly launched in August, AiSDR automates tasks typically performed by human SDRs. It crafts emails, responds to them, handles rejections, and schedules meetings with potential clients.
The software uses data from the client’s website to develop an ideal customer profile and communication style, which it uses with prospects. This results in a response rate on par with human outreach — over 5%.
The communication between AiSDR and a human looks so natural that it’s almost eerie.
If you are an early-stage startup founder, building a company that aligns with our investment thesis, and seeking to raise funds, you can send your pitch to go@flyerone.vc. Maybe we can work together.
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