HubSpot is announcing that it has acquired Kemvi, a startup applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to help sales teams.
A few months ago, Kemvi launched DeepGraph, a product that analyzes public data so that salespeople can identify the best time (say, after a job change or the publication of an article) to reach out to potential customers. It also proactively reaches out to verify leads.
“Our vision has been to empower sales and marketing professionals by building technology that can extract information from text about what’s happening in the world,” said Kemvi founder and CEO Vedant Misra.
And from the HubSpot perspective, Chief Strategy Officer Brad Coffey said the company had been looking for new ways to bring AI technology into its platform. He acknowledged that “AI” and “machine learning” are buzzwords that get thrown around a lot right now, but he found Kemvi particularly appealing because it addressed a real need among salespeople.
“What we want to do is focus on delivering tangible value to our customers,” Coffey said. “That’s what they’re here for — they’re trying to understand the right way to grow their business and reach their customer. It’s not that we want to invest in machine learning and AI for the academic interest of it.”
The two-person Kemvi team, including Misra, will be joining HubSpot to work on bringing the startup’s technology into the HubSpot platform. Misra also said there’s a transition plan for current Kemvi/DeepGraph customers: “I think they’ll be excited for what we’re working on at HubSpot.”
The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Kemvi previously raised $1 million in funding from Seabed VC, Neotribe Ventures, Kepha Partners and others.
