Microsoft has Clippy the Office Assistant to help confused users make their way around Word, and a startup from Israel called WalkMe earlier this month launched a service that offers the equivalent for the web: an interactive, on-screen guide that helps users get around complicated web pages. And two weeks out in the market, WalkMe has announced its first round of funding, from Luxembourg-based Mangrove Capital Partners.
The exact value of the Series A investment was not disclosed but TechCrunch understands it is over $1 million.
Since going live earlier this month, WalkMe’s CEO Dan Adika says it has signed up over 1,000 sites to incorporate it into its user interface (much to the delight of the designers who toiled over the original plans).
WalkMe is aiming the product at the kinds of companies that you may have grumbled about yourself when trying to figure out where to go and what to do on a website: target clients are those working in the realm of business software, online shopping, banking and really anything that requires web input to work. WalkMe says its service works as an overlay on top of existing designs, making implementation relatively quick and painless. That means potentially cost reductions in two areas: serving customers and site operations.
WalkMe says that it will use the funding to market the service to more sites, and well as increase the functionality of the product.
Mangrove has focused a lot of its activity in early stage investments like this one, and WalkMe is also part of the VC’s bigger strategy of investing in the SaaS space.
In this case, partner Michael Jackson, who was once the COO of Skype, says that this investment might have more immediate, cross-pollinating benefits: “We invested in WalkMe’s technology after seeing the benefits that their initial implementations already deliver to our portfolio companies.”
WalkMe enables website owners and app developers to easily create multiple interactive on-screen Walk-Thru’s that help users to quickly and easily complete even the most complex tasks.
Mangrove Capital Partners “Mangrove†provides venture capital with a punch to entrepreneurs looking to build world class companies. Their mission is to help turn visions into realities by providing financing, thoughtful advice, relevant experience and deep industry relationships to their portfolio companies. They look to invest in companies operating Internet or Software businesses as early as possible in their development. They are particularly comfortable investing prior to product launch and view their role as an accelerator of growth and a...
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