Cognism receives investment from Swiss, Chinese, UK and SE European investors
Swiss based Netcetera leads investment in Cognism, UK based start-up with international team from UK, Switzerland, Macedonia and Croatia. Other notable investors include Startup Funding Club, South Central Ventures, Tsingbay Venture Capital, Tom James, James Hodson and others.
Cambridge, UK – 10th January, 2017 – London/Macedonian-based startup Cognism has secured $500,000 in seed investment to fund development of its state of the art solution that provides sales organisations with a more efficient and privacy compliant way to prospect customers. The round, which was led by Netcetera, will be used to scale the Cognism team and further develop its core solution. Several other institutional and angel investors participated in the round including Startup Funding Club, SC Ventures, Tsingbay Venture Capital, Tom James, James Hodson, Usman Khan and others.
“Raising this round was an important step for us,” said James Isilay, CEO, Cognism. “In the months ahead, we’ll be investing heavily in the product itself to move toward a frictionless customer experience, expand our ability to collect and reason about data at scale, rapidly grow our data asset through strategic partnerships, and introduce Cognism to more sales and marketing teams.”
“We are excited to support Cognism on its mission to boost their customers’ sales with their impressive tech solution for delivering the right leads at the right time. I am also personally looking forward to assist Cognism’s founder James and his team in achieving this mission together with our other international co-investors,” stated Darko Butina, Chief Investment Officer of Zurich, Switzerland based Netcetera.
Lead generation, data enrichment, and targeting prospects requires time, effort, and an ongoing investment. All too often, time and energy is spent on this phase of the sales process, rather than on closing deals. Data protection and legal restrictions on customer outreach are also rapidly evolving, this further challenges the ability of sales teams to connect with customers. To assist the sales cycle, many companies, especially those with limited resources, are turning to automated sales-acceleration technology to improve the prospecting process and ensure outreach compliance in the target market.
“Cognism is using Machine Learning to massively disrupt a crowded space and in so doing has put itself at the forefront of the must-have solutions for all sales & marketing teams. I'm tremendously excited to be involved,” said Tom James, experienced early stage investor with investment in companies like Zendesk, Onelogin, Storycloud, ChartMogul, IntecTelecom and now also Cognism.
About Cognism – www.cognism.com
Cognism is an end-to-end sales-acceleration solution that provides sales organizations with a more efficient way to prospect. Delivered as a software service (SaaS), with its unique data asset and compliance engine, Cognism is helping to enrich CRM records, stream leads into the funnel and is using artificial intelligence to surface opportunities and identify customer trends. Cognism is a pure AI sales technology company that generates prospect data at scale, cleaning and enriching it, and by that helps sales teams grow and scale across all levels of the sales process.
Based in London, England and Skopje, Macedonia. Cognism was founded by James Isilay and Stjepan Buljat. Cognism is backed by Netcetera, SC Ventures, Startup Funding Club, Tsingbay Venture Capital, Tom James, James Hodson, Usman Khan and others.
About Netcetera – www.netcetera.com
As a leading Swiss software company, Netcetera supports its customers worldwide with trend-setting products and custom software. Netcetera covers the entire IT service lifecycle, from strategy to implementation and operation. A balanced combination of cutting-edging technology and proven standards ensures investment security, from large-scale projects to innovative start-ups. Netcetera’s 400 employees have one common goal: to help its customers reach their digital business targets.
Founded in 1996, Netcetera is a holding company with headquarters in Zurich. Netcetera has locations in Switzerland, Germany, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, and the United Arab Emirates.
About South Central Ventures – www.sc-ventures.com
South Central Ventures is the leading SEE venture capital investor. Its €40 million Enterprise Innovation Fund (ENIF) is dedicated to investments in tech-companies coming from Western Balkans. ENIF aims to encourage further development of start-up ecosystems and tech companies throughout the region, by supporting the founders daring to bring their businesses to global markets. Investors in the Fund are diverse, ranging from international financial institutions, such as EIF, EBRD and KfW to regional corporations, private investors and regional governments.
SC Ventures is investing throughout Western Balkans and has offices in Belgrade, Skopje and Zagreb.
Startup Funding Club – www.startupfundingclub.com
Startup Funding Club acts as a facilitator for young British businesses to receive funding by combining its network of business angels with the Startup Funding Club Fund. The London-based firm specialises in SEIS investments, and allows High Net Worth and sophisticated investors to support high potential startups either directly or through a diversified managed portfolio approach. So far, SFC has supported over a 100 companies.
CONTACT:
For additional information and any questions please contact James Isilay, CEO, Cognism, e-mail: james.isilay@cognism.com, phone number +41 79 575 77 76.