Vancouver, Wash.-based marketing software firm ZoomInfo bought Komiko, a 4-year-old Seattle-area startup that improves the customer relationship management (CRM) process with data and machizne learning.
“Everybody dreams of the unicorn exit. And those are all well and good, but the goal of every technology innovator is to get your technology in the hands of as many people as possible,” Komiko CEO Hal Howard told GeekWire. “ZoomInfo will accelerate the adoption of our technology in a major way by taking it to market and in a much more rapid fashion than we ever could have.”
Both Howard and Komiko co-founder Ami Heitner worked at Microsoft on its Dynamics CRM platform prior to starting the company.
Following the sale, Komiko will be rebranded as ZoomInfo InboxAI — a nod to the fact that Komiko’s technology gathers information from the email inboxes and calendars of salespeople and brings it into CRM systems to help them manage customer relationships.
Existing Komiko customers will continue to receive their existing services and support, the companies said. They declined to share financial terms of the deal.
Komiko’s 7-person team moved into ZoomInfo’s Bellevue, Wash. office following the acquisition. The startup was backed by Founders’ Co-op, which led the company’s $1.5 million seed round in 2016, among others.
“Combining Komiko’s machine learning chops with ZoomInfo’s data pipeline creates a much stronger value proposition than either company could have offered independently, so the combination makes a ton of sense for both,” said Chris DeVore, managing partner at Founders’ Co-op. “We’re thrilled to have played a small part in their success.”
This is the latest of a series of acquisitions for the company formerly known as DiscoverOrg, which acquired and assumed the name of ZoomInfo earlier this year. It also bought the email verification startup NeverBounce in March.
“Organizations are realizing that how they manage and leverage data is a strategic function that can accelerate or inhibit lead, pipeline, and revenue generation,” Henry Schuck, founder and CEO of ZoomInfo, said in a statement. “While our offering is a SaaS platform for GTM, we feel ZoomInfo is in the business of helping marketing and sales people hit their numbers. So when we see an opportunity to build or buy additional capabilities essential to strengthen that edge — as we did with Komiko — it’s an easy decision.”
ZoomInfo has nearly 15,000 customers and employs more than 500 people.
Source: Geek Wire
