As a partner at a VC firm, Nicolas Sharp took on the project of finding customer relationship management (CRM) software for the company. The process, he says, was “a nightmare,” leading him to build a CRM platform that could meet his—and his company’s—needs.
“I became a developer by night and a VC by day,” Sharp told businesskinda.com via email. “After a few months, I left the venture world to continue the project.”
“The project” changed to Attio, a CRM platform that combines a high-performance data model with the collaboration capabilities typical of no-code software. Founded in 2019, Attio caught on quickly, crossing the $1 million annual recurring revenue mark by December 2022, according to Sharp.
Attio today has more than 2,000 customers in more than 100 countries. And it’s raising capital, this morning it announced it raised $23.5 million in a Series A round led by Redpoint Ventures with continued participation from Balderton Capital.
To date, Attio has raised $31.2 million with 25 employees.
“Despite the current macroeconomic environment, we are currently in an excellent position. We’ve catwalked for several years and are well positioned to build what we really need to build,” Sharp said.
The Attio interface, table view. Image Credits: Attio
Like most CRMs, Attio’s platform creates a database of contacts and companies that a company interacts with on a regular basis. It allows users to sort, filter and analyze customer records, take notes and create workflows, automatically updating details such as contact information.
“When you first use Attio, it syncs with your email and calendar and creates a picture of your customer relationships with profiles, timelines of interactions and conversations, access to emails, and information about the strength of each relationship,” Sharp explains. “Via our API you can also link any other data source to Attio. From there you can search and filter these records and build workflows for different industries, use cases or scenarios.”
Sharp is not ignorant of the fact that the CRM game has some serious competition aside from Salesforce. Gameball, a customer intelligence and marketing CRM platform, recently emerged from stealth with an investment of $3.5 million. A bigger rival is Glia, valued at more than $1 billion, which is developing an AI-based CRM that allows agents to help hands-on.
Sharp sees Attio’s performance – and the price ($119 per user per month at the top end) – as the main differentiators. Legacy CRMs, he argues, can be very powerful with complex data models, but also slow to use and costly. Meanwhile, CRM startups and internal CRMs offer a better, more stable experience, but come with more simplistic and rigid models.
“There are a lot of startups that have tried to challenge in the CRM space,” Sharp said. “But the fact that even with all these options, so many people are still in ‘do-it-yourself mode’ and are so dissatisfied with their CRM means there’s a lot of room for disruption.”
Not resting on its laurels, Attio plans to soon launch a real-time reporting feature that will allow users to break down, manipulate and visualize customer data. Other capabilities in the works include extensive workflow automation.
“The biggest challenge facing CRM is that the industry is dominated by one company. As a result, the current state of CRM is almost the same as it was more than 20 years ago,” Sharp said. is designed to be flexible and adaptable, able to meet companies where they are in their journey and grow with them as they scale.”
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.