According to a MarketsandMarkets report the global sales performance management market that includes software and services is estimated to grow 18% annually to be worth $5.62 billion by 2020. The market was estimated to be worth $2.48 billion in 2015.

InsideSales.com’s Financials

Utah-based InsideSales.com was founded by David Elkington, Ken Krogue, and Rob Christensen as an outsourced web application development firm to build HR, inventory, and accounting systems based on consumer demand. In the course of development, though, the product pivoted to become a web-based sales management platform that was able to provide companies with web marketing-generated leads for sales teams. Today, InsideSales.com offers a comprehensive sales acceleration platform that helps improve sales team performance through predictive analysis, data visualization, and efficient communication, and it also adds gamification in the mix.

InsideSales.com operates on a subscription-based model. It does not disclose its financials, but a few years ago when I had met with Dave, he revealed that revenues have doubled steadily since 2004. The company was trending to revenues of $25 million in 2013.

InsideSales.com was bootstrapped initially before it raised venture funding. It has raised $251.2 million so far with investments from QuestMark Partners, Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, Salesforce Ventures, HWVP, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Microsoft, Polaris Partners, U.S. Venture Partners, Zetta Venture Partners, Acadia Woods Partners, and EPIC Ventures. Last month, InsideSales raised $50 million in a round led by Polaris Partners and with participation from Microsoft and Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. The company did not disclose its valuation but mentioned that it was flat or nominally up from previous rounds. Prior to this round, InsideSales had raised $60.6 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion in March 2015.

InsideSales.com’s Product Growth

InsideSales.com continues to invest in product development. Recently, it released a new product called InsideSales Playbooks. The Playbook allows sales reps to efficiently prospect, prioritize, and contact leads without going through multiple tools. It automatically syncs leads and activities to the CRM without requiring manual data entry. It is able to prioritize and target specific accounts with personalized sales engagement plans so as to deliver higher conversion and close rates. The solution provides reps with immediate access to critical sales resources irrespective of the website that they are on.

To help attract small businesses, it also released InsideSales Essentials, an offering targeted at the SMB segment. The application deploys InsideSales’ effective enterprise-grade features and insights derived from predictive analytics and integrates it within the sales processes to drive more leads and sales for smaller organizations. Users of the application will be able to track emails and engagement to see what types of interactions or subject lines are working. They would also be able to connect through an integrated sales dialer, email templates, and automated voicemails. The application is available to businesses at a cost of $5,000 per year for the use of a maximum of five users.

The company is also expanding its geographic footprint and to cater to the EMEA markets, recently announced plans to open offices in Ireland. It entered into a partnership with The Insight Centre for Data Analytics in Ireland to help advance data science and machine learning industry in the country. It will also work with the Center to establish a formal internship program with a goal of leveraging the skills of data science and engineering interns from within the Irish University system. InsideSales plans to add over 120 professionals for its product development and engineering, sales and sales operations, and back office teams over the next three years in Ireland.

InsideSales.com has not confirmed its plans to go public soon. The management realizes the need to offer an exit to investors, but is still unsure of what that path may be. Given the close association it has had with Microsoft, I won’t be surprised if it ends up being bought by them in the future. For now though, the company is hoping to be able to stay independent.

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