Microsoft VC unit leads $22m round for India’s SalesKen

Sequoia Capital India also participated. It follows an $8 million Series A last year from Sequoia India that also featured Unitus Ventures and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.

SalesKen describes itself as “GPS for sales success,” providing increased visibility into potential sales conversational analytics, and real-time sales coaching. The company offers various tools for monitoring salespeople on calls, webinars, presentations that it claims improve sales by up to 25% within two months of use.

SalesKen will use the fresh capital to expand into North America and develop its technology. The company is said to have grown more than 300% in the past year. The growth has been attributed in part to the difficulty of training sales reps effectively with traditional methods under work-from-home conditions.

M12 formally established a presence in India last year with a view to focusing on enterprise services in areas such as AI, business applications, infrastructure, security, and emerging technologies. Previous investments in the country include FarEye, a logistics platform that uses AI to track orders and optimize transportation routes.

Earlier this month, Microsoft India teamed up with Accenture for a project that will support the development of 10 local start-ups focused on social impact and sustainability.

"We’re committed to addressing some of India’s most pressing challenges, including expanding access to healthcare, education and finance,” Lathika Pai, country head for venture capital and private equity partnerships at Microsoft India, said in a statement.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Support services
• Technology
• Early-stage
• India
• Microsoft
• Sequoia Capital
• enterprise software
• artificial intelligence