InsightSquared Raises $8 Million for SMB Sales Analytics

InsightSquared, a Salesforce.com analytics company geared toward small and midsize businesses, has picked up $8 million in Series B funding from venture capital firm DFJ and early investor Atlas Venture, bringing its total financing to $13.5 million.

The goal of InsightSquared is to deliver enterprise-caliber sales analytics friendly to the line-of-business user. "We sell a product we feel is consumer Web-grade," Fred Shilmover, cofounder and CEO of InsightSquared, commented to CRM. "When you use Twitter, you don't use a Twitter manual or hire a consultant, [and we feel] analytics should be just as easy."

More than 300 paid customers who use InsightSquared to run Salesforce.com analysis rely on the system to determine who their best sales reps are by segment or time period to maximize sales performance and, ultimately, drive productivity and sales. Salesforce.com is an InsightSquared investor, and the company operates a strategic alliance with the cloud vendor, Shilmover notes.

Enterprise mobile app management company Apperian uses InsightSquared to draw more insights on sales data around forecasting, pipeline history, and individual sales rep performance. Prior to using the platform, Apperian relied on simple Excel spreadsheets to forecast based on data from Salesforce.com. By switching to InsightSquared, the company was able to increase its pipeline by 20 percent, as well as the average deal size by 30 percent, over a period of six months.

Although the business analytics and intelligence space is ripe with movement, InsightSquared still says its "biggest challenge is nonconsumption," Shilmover observes. "Excel is still the most commonly used analytical tool...those are the users we're trying to sell to."

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