Astella led a R$15m investment in Exact Sales, a Florianopolis-based pre-sales optimization platform, with follow-on from CVentures and Vesper Ventures. Exact Sales was founded by Felipe Roman and Théo Orosco in 2015 and raised R$4m from CVentures in 2016.

(Press Release) The BRL 15 million cash injection into Exact Sales, a Brazilian based SaaS (Software as a Service) firm, aims to consolidate the company as a technology leader in platforms focused on prospecting and qualifying customers in Latin America. The investment was led by Astella Investimentos, a key player under Brazilian funds known for its focus on SaaS based companies such as Resultados Digitais and Omie.  The news was announced during the B2B Sales Summit 2019, on October 17th in São Paulo.

In less then 5 years Exact Sales has raised BRL 21 million. The company currently has 200 employees and projects BRL 13 million in revenues for 2019. Astella now joins CVentures Primus Fund I, Vesper Ventures and other angel investors as a shareholder.

With this new round the company will invest in sales, customer success and development areas in addition to strategic acquisitions to complement the capabilities of Exact Spotter, a software for the prospection and qualification of potential customers, currently used by over 2,000 companies and 7,000 users.

The software increases lead generation by guiding and monitoring the interactions with potential customers and suggesting data-based actions for the user. According to the company, this combination provides a greater conversion of meetings into deals, increasing sales volume and reducing both customer acquisition cost and average closing time.

Spotter will continue to be equipped with new features focused primarily on increasing user productivity through process standardization, data collection and automated decision-making via artificial intelligence. Furthermore Exact Sales plans to invest in expanding the system’s infrastructure to meet the commercial expansion as well as fully adapting the solution to the Brazilian General Data Protection Act (LGPD), which will come into force in 2020.

“Choosing Astella for this round was mainly due to their knowledge and extensive experience in the sales and marketing ecosystem. In addition to their investment portfolio which includes well-known companies that act in the same area, they are also well connected with funds that have a global reach.”, explains Théo Orosco, CEO of Exact. For Laura Constantini, partner and co-founder of Astella Investimentos, “Exact Sales brings intelligence and automation to the pre-sales department – a part of the sales funnel that was not yet attended by marketing nor sales automation tools. By strengthening the pre-sales role, the whole process becomes more efficient. Over the past four years Exact Sales has built an impressive product, created strong sales processes and achieved high customer success, with a focused and agile team that also shows a tremendous learning agility”.

Brazilian pioneer in pre-sales

Exact Sales was founded in 2015 by entrepreneurs Théo Orosco and Felipe Roman and pioneered the use of the pre-sales term in Brazil as an important stage of the sales cycle that prospects and qualifies customers that are ready to be approached by a salesperson. “We diagnosed that the main reason for the low conversion from meetings to successfully closing a deal was the lack of prior customer understanding. Companies needed to know more before offering a solution, only then would they be able to qualify customers and adjust the offer, leading to much higher sales conversions, “explains Orosco.

Exact ended up being responsible for popularizing this term in the country in several verticals such as industry, retail, services, technology and educational institutions. In addition to serving small businesses, the solution has increasingly gaining ground in midsize and large enterprises – among its customers are SAP, Thomson Reuters, Philips, Unimed, Hiper, Sebrae, Engie, Estadão, Dígitro, Ultragaz, Khronos, Costão do Santinho Resort, Softplan, Oral Sin, Delivery Much and Zenvia.

The methodology also helped to create a new department within companies and especially a new professional career: the pre-salesperson. Only in 2018 for example, more than 5,000 new jobs with this description were created. This interest also made Exact Sales create a new business unit through a learning platform that provides training for these professionals: the Exact Academy. The initiative trains, online and free of charge, more than 80 professionals per month and guarantees employability for all subscribers.

About Exact Sales

Founded in 2015 by entrepreneurs Théo Orosco and Felipe Roman, Exact Sales develops a business intelligence software for the prospection and qualification of potential customers currently used by more than 2,000 companies of all sizes, the Exact Spotter. Responsible for popularizing the pre-sales term in Brazil, the company’s methodology and platform help companies improve their commercial performance, have more productivity and ultimately increase sales. With 200 employees, Exact Sales has so far raised BRL 21 million from Astella, Cventures and Vesper Ventures. More information at www.exactsales.com.br.

About Astella Investimentos

Astella is a Brazilian venture capital fund focused on companies in the seed and Series A stages. Founded in 2008 and currently investing through its third fund, Astella seeks talented and bold entrepreneurs, driven by purpose and who use technology to create new businesses, solutions and market categories that are changing Brazil’s future. Invested companies include Digital Results, Omie, Sallve, Good for Credit, Zygo, Clicksign, Jota, Qulture.rocks, among others. More information at www.astellainvest.com.

About CVentures Primus Fund I

Primus Fund I is a Brazilian Southern region based Fund, co-managed by CVentures (the private investment arm of Fundação Certi, the hub of the innovation and startup ecosystem in Florianópolis), and CRP (one of the pioneers in the PE/VC industry in Brazil, with more than 35 years of experience in private investment in Southern Brazil). The Primus Fund I invested in 15 startups across several segments, specially SaaS and Fintech, including Exact Sales, Asaas, Zygo, Wevo and Hiper (exited in Q2.2019 to Linx – NASDAQ: LINX). More information at www.cventures.com.br and www.crp.com.br.