London-based sales automation startup Avnio has exited stealth mode with a £3m seed investment led by early stage VC firm Felicis Ventures.
Avnio will use the investment, shared exclusively with UKTN, to fuel its expansion to the US and for product development of its sales and marketing software.
It is the first external funding for Avnio, which has bootstrapped since it was founded by Tobias Dawes in February 2020 at the onset of the pandemic.
The startup’s software solutions are integrated in the Salesforce platform and combine artificial intelligence and distributed workflows. It aims to automate manual sales tasks from the request for proposal stage through the “entire business workflow”.
Tobias Dawes, founder and CEO of Avnio, told UKTN that this can help sales teams “eradicate huge inefficiencies and bottlenecks in the B2B sales cycle” and focus more on “enabling the buyer”.
Its products include a Salesforce-native data visualisation tool and conversational AI assistant.
Dawes said that he expects the capital injection to fuel growth for the next “12 to 18 months” before needing to raise more funding.
Anvio aims to hire more than 60 people in the US. Dawes said that the “paperwork has started” for the US expansion and that the startup is hiring US staff “as we speak”.
Dawes added: “Our hybrid working model means we will set up working offices for employees but continue to follow our ‘work from anywhere’ approach.”
Avnio currently employes more than 30 people across the UK and India. The company says its annual recurring revenue has increased by 14x and its customers have grown sevenfold.
“Avnio is the missing piece of the puzzle in the sales and marketing cycle for businesses,” said Dawes. “Having started as an idea back in 2019, to now raising £3m in funding for the next stage of our growth, Avnio has an important role to play in helping people work more efficiently by streamlining workflows and accelerating sales opportunities to sales-won.”