We’ll give you a Klue…

Today we announced our participation in the Series A funding round for Klue, a company we backed at the Seed stage. It was an easy decision for us, but maybe not for the reasons you’d expect. Yes, the global business intelligence market is predicted to grow to nearly $50B by 2025 so there’s a strong financial bet. And we had already invested in Klue at Seed, so we know the company well. But identifying and backing a business with strong growth potential is table stakes in the ventures game. The real value is in finding founders, like Jason and Sarathy, who have that extra special something that makes them more likely than most to succeed in achieving their vision.

Watching Jason operate under the extraordinary conditions created by COVID-19 (he literally started fundraising the week the world shut down) was nothing short of awe-inspiring.

The way that Jason was able to pivot his approach and successfully close a fundraising round in lockdown, is a testament to the agility, determination, and ability to tap into the prevailing zeitgeist of a moment. On reflection, those are all attributes he has demonstrated consistently in the business. Klue operates in a super competitive market. But the team has carved out a narrative (backed by a first-rate product) that is resonating.

Creating business magic

For years now businesses have had a problem. How do they tap into useful data from across the company, and the market, to the benefit of their business? For a while, it was called big data. Then it was business intelligence. Whatever label you choose to give it, the challenge has remained: what good is intelligence if it is siloed, inconsistent, and out of date? Tackling the issue of how to gather and apply data in a way that meaningfully impacts your business’s bottom line is exactly where Klue comes in.

The company has created a way to use the latest Machine Learning to track and curate information that will immediately give a company’s sales teams, customer service reps, account managers, or product marketers the upper hand. Klue’s entire offering is based on the premise that today’s customer is an extremely well-informed one — and to succeed a company needs to meet that customer where they are. With the information they need to hear.

The beauty of Klue is that it has seen the opportunity far beyond the sales team. And particularly in this time of COVID, the team has shifted fast to helping their own users use the insights gathered to support existing customers better, which in turn leads to either retained or increased revenue.

Klue tracks everything that is relevant to a business, from both external and internal sources. It offers a company the ability to curate that information in a single place and make it available on-demand to the people in the business who need it. It’s genius. And it’s being used by the likes of Fortune 100 companies all over the world. But enough about the business. Let’s get onto the more unique aspects of this raise.

Pandemic diaries

The fascinating thing about this fundraising process has been watching the process itself unfold.

Not only was Jason fundraising but he was also managing the business and attending to the mental and physical health of his team as they navigated through a completely unprecedented and far-reaching crisis. Some would call him crazy to fundraise during this time, but he was determined. And through our daily conversations, we came away more impressed with Jason than ever before.

There were two main takeaways on the process, from my perspective.

Fundraising over Zoom can work wonders.
Jason said it best when he highlighted the unexpected ability to create rapport with investors much faster than in ‘normal’ times. Call after call he’d inadvertently meet family members, spot vacation photos, or see the proverbial ice shatter as the family cat picked an inopportune time to walk across a desk.

A situation that can often feel stacked very much in the investor’s favor — an initial pitch meeting — saw the playing field completely leveled. Investors were thrust into the daily reality of many founders who work from home regularly, often out of necessity. Jason was completely comfortable conducting meetings from his home office, and it showed in his demeanor.

There was also an immediate sense of shared vulnerability, given we were all experiencing the complete unknown. Fears over health, the economy, and the impact on business in general were shared by everyone. It created an immediate sense of camaraderie with the investors he was speaking to and between us, if we’re being honest.

On a more practical note, stripping out the hours spent in planes and cars to make these meetings happen, and just lining them up hour after hour on Zoom, meant the process was actually much quicker, effective and meaningful. So much so that I’d say our relationship with Jason today is even stronger than before. Of course we cover business issues whenever we talk, but we are also more engaged in each other’s lives in general. I don’t believe that would have happened without the pandemic.

It just takes one
This should come as no surprise, but the pandemic raise reinforced even more strongly how important that first formal commitment is. In March, no one had any idea what we were facing. By May, according to our own research among 150 VCs over 60% had not yet done a fully remote deal. If a formal commitment plays an important role in getting others to sign on the line under normal circumstances, you can imagine the power it had during lockdown.

It was impressive to witness the relationship that was forged remotely by Jason and our friends at Craft Ventures, so quickly. These unique circumstances created strong demand in the market. But to be honest, with strong metrics and an experienced leader, we would have expected nothing less.

Klue is just getting started but has already shown that it can navigate and scale through a tough and ever-changing economic environment. No small part of this is down to the inspiration, humility, and discipline Jason brings every single day. We’re proud, lucky, and excited to be part of this continued journey!