Virtual Scouting Agent Startup Leadspicker Closes $2.2M Funding Round
Enterprise virtual assistant developer Leadspicker has raised around $2.2 million in a seed funding round from Reflex Capital and J&T Ventures. The startup plans to further develop its automated recruitment platform and expand into sales as enterprise AI rapidly gains popularity.
Picking Leads
Prague-based Leadspicker began in 2015 as a tool for reducing repetitive and boring tasks for recruiters. The Czech startup initially focused on looking for candidates for startup accelerators and competitions. Now, founders Vlastimil Vodička and Jan Skácel have begun adding sales tasks to the list of automated roles for the platform. The user fills out what kind of customer or recruit they are looking for on the platform, and the AI begins hunting for good options, reaching out to them, and setting up meetings for deals. The recruiter or salesperson can focus on actually nailing down the deal instead of the searching and logistics around it. The company claims it has 200 clients worldwide.
“I open my e-mail in the morning and have, for example, eight or ten confirmed meetings with potential clients. I didn’t have to do anything about it. Then I just take calls and sell,” Leadspicker CEO Vlastimil Vodička said in a statement. “I have my personal robot who looks for relevant clients and gradually reaches out to them, so that it does not have to overwhelm me. Our vision is that every salesperson will have their own virtual assistant, which will relieve them of mundane, routine activities. It works great, this is how we gain our clients all over the world.”
Enterprise Expansion
Applying AI to search and connection processes for businesses is a logical extension of the advancing technology. Leadspicker will need the capital to push its development if it wants to compete with other startups and new products from the big names in tech. For instance, sales platform Outreach recently came out with a voice-controlled virtual assistant named Kaia (Knowledge AI Assistant). Kaia is designed to expedite customer interactions in service of a sale, similar in some ways to Leadspicker. Then there’s the way Salesforce has begun upgrading and customizing its Einstein voice assistant platform to hurry up routine paperwork, among other duties. The same goes for the changes Microsoft has made to its Cortana voice assistant by integrating it into Microsoft 365. At the same time, Oracle and Cisco are bringing AI into more and more of their enterprise products. The tech can also be used to improve interactions with customers, which Leadspicker will likely explore as it evolves. That’s how companies like Gridspace operate. Gridspaceits Sift platform for transcribing and examining conversations with customers for real-time information. The company also supports Twilio’s real-time call analytics service Media Streams. Big companies are eager to invest in or acquire smaller firms with that kind of technology, such as Observe AI $26 million funding round or the $75 million that Goldman Sachs invested in CallMiner.
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