German data startup acto secures €3.7m seed funding to empower B2B sales teams

acto, the Paderborn-based active decision intelligence for B2B sales teams, has raised €3.7 million in seed funding. The round, led by 468 Capital and Cusp Capital, with continued support from adesso ventures, will be used to further the startup's mission to help B2B companies use data more effectively and solve the problem of data silos.

Founded by Pascal Salmen and Andre Stollhans, acto helps B2B sales teams tackle the critical challenge of data handling and decentralization, which can lead to staff being overloaded with complex, difficult-to-understand and hard-to-process data, a problem all too familiar to the duo from their extensive backgrounds in CRM and ERP system implementations.

acto's platform empowers sales teams in wholesale, logistics, and B2B consumables by providing active decision intelligence on top of internal legacy technology (such as CRMs and ERPs) and external data sources, turning data chaos into actionable insights and significantly boosting sales efficiency and revenue. In a world where 80 percent of insights into customer behavior such as potential future sales or churn risk go unnoticed (leading to a potential 15 percent loss in annual revenue), acto proactively detects anomalies, threats, and opportunities within customer data.

Its features provide sales reps with 'out of the box AI' which delivers customised insights, prioritized by their potential impact on sales, complete with direct next steps. These insights are accessible through the acto interface or directly within the sales rep's CRM. The platform not only enables sales teams to focus on the most impactful actions but also automates sales quotes and emails, generates revenue optimization and cross-selling opportunities, and seamlessly integrates with ERP systems and legacy technologies to expedite sales activities.

According to Fortune Business Intelligence, the active decision intelligence market is projected to grow from $14.66 billion in 2023 to $44.63 billion by 2030. acto's offering stands out through its unique scoring model, proprietary data set, and a user-friendly interface focused on essential, prioritized signals, coupled with robust automation workflows.

‍Pascal Salmen, Co-founder, acto: ‍‍"In a rapidly evolving market, B2B sales teams are drowning in a sea of data and customer information from BI dashboards, KPI cards, and spreadsheets, struggling to surface the critical insights on customer behavior and leverage the vast amounts of data at their fingertips. Our partnership with leading investors 468 Capital and Cusp Capital enables us to accelerate our mission to transform data interaction within B2B sales, making every decision impactful."

‍Bardo Droege, investor, 468 Capital: "acto's ability to sift through the noise and deliver precise, actionable decision suggestions is not just enhancing sales efficiency, but also has the potential to augment any function in an organization, such as logistics or procurement. It is therefore well positioned to completely change the way companies leverage data - connecting data silos and substantially driving tangible business outcomes, and eliminating the guesswork by empowering decision makers to actively decide.‍ We are confident that acto's unique approach has the potential to set the gold standard in high-stake and high-volume decision augmentation."‍

‍Matthias Müller, General Partner, Cusp Capital: "Instead of trying to replace well-integrated legacy technology (i.e., ERP & CRM systems), acto enables businesses to turn their vast quantities of untapped data into actionable insights - hassle free. We believe this to be a game-changer for pressured SMEs powered by an exceptional team."

‍Thefresh influx of capital, which also includes funding from another.vc and several experienced business angels such as Benedikt Franke (Planetly) and Niklas Hellemann (SoSafe), will be used to fuel acto's growth and operations, including investing in the product roadmap, onboarding new customers, and expanding the team to further disrupt how B2B companies interact with data. 

Additionally, acto is developing technology to augment customer data with data from the open web, elevating the quality of acto's scoring model and insight prioritization by leveraging external data. acto has already seen traction and includes Rhenus Logistics and Schäfer Shop as customers. Right now acto's focus is on helping sales teams. In the future its products will help business teams in other areas such as procurement and logistics. 

‍Joachim Bach, VP Sales International, Schäfer Shop: ‍‍"acto's AI saves our sales teams up to eight hours every week - meaning they are more productive and spend less time analyzing data and more time with the right customers."

www.heyacto.com