With the growth of the enterprise, there are countless options for enterprise businesses to consider. When selecting a technology stack, the choices become even more difficult. Truly understanding a solution, its usage, and adoption becomes even more daunting. Enter Reachify, a market intelligence platform for both buyers and sellers in the enterprise space. The platform provides the tools for timely and insightful evaluation of software for buyers while sellers are able to properly vet and evaluate potential buyers.
AlleyWatch chatted with CEO and founder Cindy Lincks about the company and its most recent experience raising their Seed round.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Reachify raised $1.5 million in Seed funding led by Forerunner Ventures, with participation from NEA, Female Founders Fund, Beanstalk Ventures and Commerce Ventures.
Tell us about your product or service.
Every industry is struggling to keep up with the pace of change that technology is driving in their businesses. Retailers and brands are no exception. How can buyers reduce risk and ensure they are making the right decision, and how can sellers address buyers concerns and reduce friction in the selling process? Reachify solves this problem.
Reachify is an intelligence platform for enterprise buyers and sellers. We are the first software evaluation platform for enterprise technology buyers and customer evaluation platform for software sellers.
We harness insights found nowhere else to develop world-class sales teams and drive smarter software investments.
What inspired you to start the company?
I founded Reachify out of my personal pain points as a buyer of enterprise software while serving as VP of Ecommerce at Brooks Brothers. I was frustrated with the lack of insights to answer very simple and important questions around competitive usage, market share and available solutions. With Reachify, I was able finally provide access to insights found nowhere else, driving smarter software investments and supporting world class sales teams with buyer intelligence.
How is it different?
We are a data company at our core, but our differentiator is our ability to provide insights for complex questions found only in enterprise/large businesses. Many buyers and sellers struggle with having to aggregate information from many sources and even then fall short of answering critical questions. In today’s market, speed to insights is key.
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
Enterprise software is a $620B industry growing at 20% YoY. Our approach was to activate the buyer side of the market and we knew sellers would be soon to follow.
What’s your business model?
Reachify is a SaaS model, we sell Sales Acceleration Tools to vendors, tools that help inform world class sales teams.
What kind of outcomes have you seen for both brands and vendors from using your platform?
We see brands reduce the time it takes for them to research. In minutes an executive can get to an answer when before it could take weeks.
What was the funding process like?
The process was typical of what you read about, it was ‘a process’ to get to the right fit. It is important for us, as it is for all Startups, to find the right partners who understood their business, which meant we met with a handful of investors. In the end, I couldn’t have asked for a better fit in our investors.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
The time investment is always the biggest challenge, it takes time to perfect the message, ensure you find an investor that has conviction in your vision and the opportunity and that time takes away from the day-to-day.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Enterprise software is a big business, both from a cost investment from buyers and the reliance on technology for companies to succeed. It’s also painfully obvious, for those familiar with the industry, of the struggles in both buying and selling. You can feel it/see it at industry conferences, you can see it in the amount of marketing outbound communication. If Reachify doesn’t solve it, someone will, the market demands it.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Continue to show traction in market. We have incredible customers today and we want to strengthen our foundation, first party data and continue to build on the mission of providing insights found no where else.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
You can do a lot with a small team. We’ve historically run lean as we were learning and it was worth it. It provided cushion in our burn while we tested and developed.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
This new funding will enable Reachify to further expand its reach in the retail sector, while building traction in new categories including travel, insurance, banking, automotive and consumer packaged goods.
Where is your favorite fall destination in the city?
I’m originally from the south, where apple picking isn’t an activity for fall. I love to make a trip to an apple farm and enjoy the leaves and activities.