• Symbe has raised a £1.2m pre-seed round led by Concept Ventures and joined by Pact VC, Notion Capital, and Nodes Ventures 
• The AI-powered platform transforms sales by automating the creation of business cases; helping companies showcase their value and close more deals
• Symbe was founded by a team of serial entrepreneurs who wanted to remove the time and energy drain involved in creating high impact business cases, and enable stronger alignment between buyer and seller

London, UK – 2nd May, 2024 – Symbe, an AI-powered platform that helps sales teams win more deals by automating the creation of tailored business cases, has raised a £1.2m pre-seed round led by Concept Ventures and joined by Pact VC, Notion Capital, and a range of leading angels through Nodes Ventures. Angels include Resolv Labs Founder, Fedor Chmile, Founders Capital CEO, Richard Hadler, and a series of angels from Stripe.

The company has been founded by a trio of serial entrepreneurs. Martin Blinder (CEO) and Thomas Laurbjerg (CRO), who scaled digital healthcare company Tictrac before exiting in 2022, and machine learning expert Xavier Wilders, who founded SME budgeting platform Beyond Labs, which was acquired in 2023. 

When building their previous B2B tech platforms, the founders discovered that tailored ‘business cases’ – the metrics, modelling and narrative which demonstrate the value of a purchase to a specific client – were the key to converting customers. Building compelling business cases became their route to winning enterprise deals, but it was a laborious task involving customising spreadsheets, designing presentation decks, and building bespoke financial models. It drained time and energy from their teams. Symbe was built to enable companies to build brilliant, deal-winning business cases without the hassle. 

Martin Blinder, CEO & co-founder, comments:

“The ‘business case’ sits at the heart of most B2B purchasing decisions – today more than ever. But the process of creating them has barely changed in recent decades. Companies are selling increasingly impressive, cutting-edge solutions, but often struggle to demonstrate their actual value and are held back by cumbersome sales approaches. 

“Teams deserve to have business case tools that are as impressive as the products or services they’re selling. That’s what Symbe is bringing to market: an AI-powered way of making your case, building trust between buyer and seller, and driving up sales. Through this tool, we are enabling teams to bring the Enterprise playbook to mid-market accounts in a cost-effective, impactful and scalable way.”

The AI-powered platform automates the development of compelling business cases; enabling sales teams to easily build customised and impactful ‘digital showrooms’ that irrefutably showcase their value. As a collaborative tool, the platform helps build trusted relationships with clients, generating evidence that can be championed by sales targets internally and helping to close more deals. 

With over 20 beta-customers from a diverse range of sectors already using the platform to boost their sales, and with a large number of additional companies on track to onboard within the next quarter, the team behind Symbe believe their AI-powered tool could unlock billions in sales for businesses across Europe and the US over the coming years.

The Symbe platform uncovers key customer needs and pain points, before building a business case that showcases how the product or service will solve them. These customised, value-based stories can be used to showcase the impact of the purchase, as well as be leveraged by buyers when seeking internal sign-off from wider teams.

Oliver Kicks, Partner at Concept Ventures, who led the pre-seed round, comments:

“It’s always exciting when we hear about entrepreneurs who have landed on a truly untapped market. That’s what the team at Symbe has done. Every single company in the world is selling something. But very few have explored how AI and machine learning can turbocharge that process, whilst protecting the trust and personalisation that ultimately help teams win. Symbe’s technology will usher in a new frontier when it comes to how companies position their offering and ultimately close deals. We’re very excited to back this talented trio of founders at the beginning of their journey.”

This pre-seed investment will be used to expand the Symbe team, further refine and expand the platform’s capabilities, and help drive the company’s growth across a range of global markets. 

ENDS

About the Founders

Martin Blinder, CEO and Co-founder

• Former Co-founder/CEO of Tictrac – Global B2B Digital Health company. (Acquired by Dialogue Health Tech.)
• Former Partner at Essence – Global Digital Media Company (Acquired by Mediacom/WPP)
• Former Co-founder of Bloom Consulting, an international Nation Branding and Product innovation consultancy.
• Former Co-founder & Head of Product at Tuhipoteca – a B2C financial services platform (Acquired by Xelector)

Thomas Laurbjerg, CCO and Co-founder

• Former Biz Dev Director at Tictrac, Global B2B Digital Health company. (Acquired by Dialogue Health Tech.)
• Former Co-founder/CCO of REWSS, Telecom Enterprise SW company
• Former Co-founder/Chairman of Cursum, E-learning Enterprise SW company (Acquired by Danware Data A/S0
• Former COO Haburi.com, Global eCommerce platform (Acquired by Alt Group, Germany)

Xavier Wilder, CTO and Co-founder

• Former Co-founder/CTO of Beyond Labs – Collaborative Budgeting Platform for SMEs (Acquired by Labolife)
• Entrepreneurs First – EF5 Cohort 2015
• Oxford University MSc Computer Science, specialised in Machine Learning, Hoare prize, graduated top of year.
• Built two other enterprise platforms singlehandedly – a collaborative budgeting tool for a multinational SME, and a privacy-first enterprise tool around ChatGPT.