Vymo raises $18M to help on-the-go salespeople do more

Vymo, a New York-headquartered startup that operates an eponymous mobile-first service to help salespeople manage their leads and get more work done, has raised $18 million in a new financing round to expand its footprint in the U.S. and other markets.

The Series B round for the six-year-old startup was led by Emergence Capital, a VC firm that focuses on enterprise cloud firms. Existing investor Sequoia India also participated in the round. Vymo has raised more than $23 million to date.

Vymo serves as a CRM (customer relationship management) solution and also works with other popular CRMs such as Salesforce. The service helps salespeople automatically capture their business calls, visits, messages, emails, calendar and the engagement levels to better track and manage their leads, Yamini Bhat, co-founder and CEO of Vymo, told TechCrunch in an interview.

The ease is crucial for salespeople. “CRMs have existed for more than a decade. But they still see under 15% to 20% day-to-day adoption,” Bhat explained. “Salespeople don’t actively log their activities into the CRM, which creates management challenges. People don’t know which deal will close and when it will close.”

Research and advisory firm Gartner said in a report that “field representatives aren’t going to ‘live’ in [sales force automation systems]…that ship has sailed.” In contrast, more than 75% of Vymo’s registered users log in and take actions on the app every day. Vymo’s offering also looks at a salesperson’s activities to identify what is working best for them and makes recommendations for “high-value activities” to other members based on that.

Vymo, which employs about 100 people, has amassed over 40 enterprise customers, including life insurance firms AIA Group and AXA, in seven nations. More than 100,000 salespeople use Vymo’s service. The startup will use the fresh capital to expand its business in many parts of the world and also begin operations in the U.S. market, Bhat said.

“With its exceptionally high user adoption metrics and steadily expanding user base — 100,000 salespeople at over 40 global enterprises and counting — Vymo is delivering transformational value. It’s the kind of company we at Emergence love partnering with — one that stands to drastically improve the day-to-day work lives of millions of people,” Jake Saper, a partner with Emergence Capital, who joins Vymo’s board as part of the financing, said in a statement.

Shailesh Lakhani, managing director of Sequoia Capital India Advisors, said, “As early partners, we’ve seen Vymo grow rapidly across all metrics, but most importantly in avid adoption by mobile-first workers at some of the largest global enterprises. Vymo is uniquely positioned to become the standard by which sales and distribution is run in these institutions.”