04.08.2015
AXA Strategic Ventures will make its first investment of $1 million in Evercontact, the cloud service that extracts contact information in emails, allows them to be shared with collaborators and keeps CRMs and address books automatically up to date. This new funding will enable the startup to expand its product line, further develop its expertise and accelerate its international growth, specifically with the launch of a US-based subsidiary.
Evercontact, the universal contact management solution for professionals
Already adopted by over 100,000 users, Evercontact is the only fully automated cloud service that accurately and effortlessly finds and updates contact information otherwise left unused in email (Gmail, Google for Work, Outlook, Office 365) by identifying, extracting and then comparing the information in email signatures to a person or company’s contact database. The value is clear for a professional’s individual use or even more importantly as a collaborative tool to share contact info in a team’s address book or leads and accounts within a CRM platform (Salesforce, Dynamics, Highrise or Zoho). Thus far, the company has analyzed over 1 billion emails and created and updated more than 300 million user contacts.To provide its service, Evercontact, an innovative French Tech startup & AXA-supported initiative, specializes in linguistic technology using a “Big Data” approach.
“Evercontact came to our attention with its entrance into the Smart Data for Customer Intelligence incubator program launched by AXA Direct and Paris & Co last December. Contact management is obviously a major issue for insurance companies, especially when optimizing their sales relationships,” commented Minh Q. Tran, General Partner of AXA Strategic Ventures and Managing Partner of AXA Factory. “Additionally, investing in technology related to Big Data is one of our priorities and Evercontact, as an innovator in this market, has a potential for international expansion that influenced our decision to provide support for its growth. Evercontact is the first startup to benefit from AXA Factory accelerator program.”
AXA Strategic Ventures & Evercontact: breakthrough acceleration in the US market
The investment by AXA Strategic Ventures demonstrates its determination to harness technological disruption for the benefit of AXA Group companies. Complementing internal efforts to improve customer experience by bringing in new approaches, technologies and business models being developed by young innovative companies can only lead to stronger results. Accordingly, Evercontact will be the first company to benefit from the AXA Factory accelerator, a mentoring program which helps drive the growth of insurance and financial technology startups in France.
International expansion and presence in San Francisco
This round will allow Evercontact to finance its technical and commercial development with the goal of boosting its international presence, particularly in the U.S., a crucial market which already accounts for 80% of the company’s revenues. The startup aims to substantially increase sales in the coming months, and to maximize U.S. business by opening an office in San Francisco in 3Q 2015, preparing the groundwork through the UBI i/o immersion program in 2Q. A Business France and BPI France initiative, UBI i/o provides 8 French startups the opportunity to launch or intensify their activity in the U.S. during a 10-week residency in San Francisco. Currently located in Paris, Evercontact has 10 employees and will double that by the end of the year.
“Our first capital injection in 2012 allowed us to validate and structure our offer. This second round of financing comes at a time when Evercontact is more established. The funds will enable us to shift into high gear, and particularly to expand our reach in the worldwide marketplace,” stated Philippe Laval, CEO of Evercontact. “Our service is already successful with US-based companies but our continued growth there requires a local presence, made possible by this support from AXA Strategic Ventures”.
evercontact.com
