Insightly Raises $10M For CRM Service Wrapped In An Email App

Insightly has raised $10 million for its CRM service that integrates with Gmail, Outlook, Office 365 and other services. Emergence Capital Partners, Sozo Ventures and TrueBridge Capital Partners participated in the Series B round led by Matt Holleran, founder and managing director of Cloud Apps Management. Insightly has now raised a total of $13 million.

The company, which serves more than 184,000 customers in 100 countries, will use the funding to localize the service, hire new employees and extend marketing to its international markets.

Insightly enhances its email app with hooks into calendars, an address book, tags and a host of other services, such as custom filtering. The company is also putting an emphasis as well on its mobile apps, which are increasingly a critical aspect of a small business arsenal.

Founder and CEO Anthony Smith said that small businesses are realizing that even when they are getting started, CRM systems are invaluable for engaging with customers. To engage these more sophisticated customers requires providing freemium services, a core aspect of what Insightly offers.

The success of a startup is increasingly defined by the way it turns a web experience into a transaction. Big sales deals are the rarity in this new market reality. Freemium services are now the standard more than anything else.

The small business CRM market is growing fast, especially with the advent of mobile devices. Insightly competes with popular services, such as High Rise and Capsule CRM, but it also faces tough competition from popular new services, including Streak, an app that puts Gmail in a wrapper to deliver a lead-based service that allows companies to leverage the popular email service.