{"id":45491,"date":"2023-10-20T15:43:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/melbourne-startup-salespreso-closes-2-million-series-a-round-after-flying-under-the-radar-for-three-years-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:43:55","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:43:55","slug":"melbourne-startup-salespreso-closes-2-million-series-a-round-after-flying-under-the-radar-for-three-years-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/melbourne-startup-salespreso-closes-2-million-series-a-round-after-flying-under-the-radar-for-three-years-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne startup SalesPreso closes $2 million Series A round after “flying under the radar” for three years – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

A Melbourne cloud-based presentation platform has closed a $2 million Series A round as the three year old startup emerges from secrecy with plans for rapid expansion.<\/p>\n

SalesPreso is a big-data sales presentation and analytics platform aiming to replace the traditional sales presentation with data-based storytelling.<\/p>\n

The SalesPreso SaaS platform automatically pulls data from business systems including Salesforce, SAP and Microsoft Dynamics into slides in a sales pitch, helping to make the story consistent, tracked and measured across a large enterprise.<\/p>\n

The Series A round was led by Sapien Ventures and will be used to accelerate growth plans and for further product development, co-founder Joel Thomson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cUp until now we\u2019ve been really flying under the radar,\u201d Thomson tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve built an enviable client list but we\u2019ve been making sure the platform is advanced enough so that we\u2019re in a good competitive position and we\u2019re ready to scale.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe managed to hold off taking the funding by backing ourselves so we could keep the proposition under the radar until we\u2019re ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

SalesPreso co-founder Aaron Cooper says the startup has been entirely bootstrapped prior to this round, and the pair went into the fundraising process with no experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew nothing about fundraising, it was a learning experience for sure,\u201d Cooper tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing we knew was that we wanted to find a partner, not an ATM. We wanted to find investors who could bring us more than money, and ones that could get their hands a bit dirty.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a much longer process than we had expected but one we felt like we needed to do so we ultimately felt like we made the right choice, and that\u2019s where we\u2019ve ended up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going all in<\/h3>\n

Thomson and Cooper previously ran a digital agency together, where they regularly saw clients struggle with the sales pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw how uncontrolled it was and how it was essentially left to chance,\u201d Thomson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin the organisation there\u2019s sophisticated software, and on the customer side there\u2019s sophisticated software, but in the middle there are inevitably conversations being had around a very unsophisticated presentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair set out to solve this problem through combining a company\u2019s existing big data with storytelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw the problem and we saw the solution being data-driven sales storytelling,\u201d Thomson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowing this problem and understanding the solution is one thing, but it was a big challenge to develop a new content platform for sales to work with. That\u2019s quite transformational.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper says that it\u2019s all about automating as much of the process as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole point is it automatically makes as many slides as possible relevant to the customer,\u201d Cooper tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the customer is presented with is something much more engaging and interactive on our platform – it\u2019s mostly about them and their industry, and what\u2019s important to them rather than a generic sales pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

After putting together an MVP of the platform, SalesPreso secured a prominent first client.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea immediately resonated and the first implementation was with REA Group,\u201d Thomson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they bought it that gave us real confidence to grow. When we got other clients we realised that the idea had real legs and real merit, so we retired the digital agency and took our full focus to SalesPreso.\u201d<\/p>\n

The startup\u2019s clients now also include Australia Post and MYOB, and Cooper says the feedback has been positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cClients say that they used to spend anywhere between 50-75% of their time making presentations,\u201d Cooper says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now they\u2019re spending two or three hours a week instead of days. They attribute an increase in the bottom line to using our platform because of the amount of time they\u2019re given back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The competition<\/h3>\n

While saying there are no other tech companies offering a similar product, Cooper says SalesPreso\u2019s competition are the traditional options like PowerPoint and internal offerings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no companies that attack the problem from the same point-of-view as us,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the competitors – like PowerPoint – are end-user tools. They\u2019re designed for salespeople to make the presentation. The point of our platform is it\u2019s designed for the business to have a centrally controlled platform that ensures everything is accurate and up to date, and specific to the customer you\u2019re presenting to.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur only real competitor, other than just making no change at all, is the companies making their own platforms to address this problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putting yourself first<\/h3>\n

For other founder and entrepreneurs, Thomson says it\u2019s crucial to know the ins and outs of your own company and what you\u2019re looking for in an investor before approaching anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe natural inclination if you don\u2019t have any experience is to go to the internet and do research, but in our experience every single scenario is quite different, there isn\u2019t a one-size fits all approach,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore you understand the market, try to understand yourself really well. You need to have a very strong value proposition that you understand and that you can stand by.\u201d<\/p>\n

And you need to be prepared to stand by this vision when challenged by a potential investor, Cooper says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re not steadfast with your vision it\u2019s easy to be pushed around,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone is going to invest in you then they\u2019re investing in your idea, and more importantly in you as a founder – what you\u2019ve done and what you\u2019re going to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing you want to do is change that because some people gave you an opinion along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter, LinkedIn.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Melbourne cloud-based presentation platform has closed a $2 million Series A round as the three year old startup emerges<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45491"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}