Deal Radar 2008: Genius

Imagine you are on the web site of a company, browsing about their products, and someone from that company calls you at that very moment? That’s the technology Genius provides. It’s spooky!

Genius provides real time marketing solutions for sales and marketing professionals to connect to customers and close deals through their websites. Their leading product SalesGenius delivers instant information to sales and marketing professionals thereby helping qualify their prospects and make the sale, resulting in expedited sale cycles. SalesGenius is delivered as a service (SaaS). It is a hosted solution which can be used directly without any alterations to the customer’s website and also without any programming or IT involvement. It is available on a monthly subscription basis which starts at $49 per person.

Genius was founded in 2004 by David Thompson and Robert Seidl and is located in San Mateo, California. The company has grown to 30,000 users from over 149 countries. In the last year the number of customers has grown from 100 to 400 and quarter over quarter bookings increased by 61%. While previously customers bought only one copy of the software recently companies sign up over 30 employees. Some of its customers are All Covered, PrintRunner, ThoughtLava and WebEx. The company just signed on a major client – British Telecom.

In February 2008, Genius raised $19 million in financing from Accel Partners and previous investors Mohr Davidow Ventures, Emergence Capital and Walden International. In January 2007 they had raised $10 million in a second round of funding from Mohr Davidow, Emergence and Walden. The latter two investors had also funded the first round of $5.1 million in March 2006.

An article on VentureBeat discusses how Genius allows companies to run email campaigns by sending out emails with links to the company’s website. After an email is opened by a potential customer, a salesperson can track their movement on the site. With their progress into email campaigns, Genius will face competition from other companies like ExactTarget, Constant Contact and Eloqua.

In an article on CNet, Rafe Needleman discusses how the intense tracking is ‘disturbing’ and can be misused if in the wrong hands Still, it is a powerful tool for salespeople who can pitch exactly what the customer wants and deliver the appropriate product at the correct time.

A company worth watching, although the amount of money raised is exorbitant, and they have to build a very large business to provide return-on-investment.

This segment is a part in the series : Deal Radar 2008