Uman Secures €1.9 Million to Transform B2B Sales Enablement with AI

In a significant move that highlights the growing intersection of artificial intelligence and sales, Ghent-based startup Uman just closed a €1.9 million round. The funding, led by Holland Capital with participation from current investors Imec and Seeder Fund, allows Uman further power its cutting-edge innovation in sales enablement, with a particular focus on B2B sales teams.

The Challenge in B2B Sales Today

The B2B sales environment is more complicated than ever. Selling organizations continue to be burdened with overwhelmingly diverse product and service portfolios. Against a backdrop of rising customer expectations and shrinking budgets, many sales departments are operating from a disadvantaged position. Founders Charles Boutens, CEO, and Sven Degroote, CTO recognized this challenge and went on to create a solution that would improve sales efficiency and effectiveness using AI.

The way most B2B companies do sales now no longer delivers the right returns." It is in respect to this that Boutens declares the need for change. This feeling reverberates into the wider industry trend, in which traditional methods of sale just about fail to meet the demands of modern consumers. Too often, this ends up in lost opportunities with frustrated sales teams.

Introducing Uman's AI Agent

Their flagship product, the AI agent named uman, enables this with tailor-made insights and content for sales teams to work with. With smart data governance and generative AI at its core, the platform ensures that the sales representatives get relevant information and personalized pitches without doing the tedious research manually.

Benefits of using the Uman AI agent:

• Improved Conversion Rates:
Personalized insights will enable the sales team to further align their offerings with customer needs.
• Benefit of time:
No need to waste time pouring over research and prepping, when the sales professionals can instead spend some very valuable time building relationships.
• Improved cross-selling:
With an AI-analyzed customer's data, sales professionals can have a very strategic approach to upselling and cross-selling.

Market Adoption and Future Plans

So far its original concept has widely attracted a stream of clients, among them big names in IT, consultancy, and telecommunications, such as Proximus and DPG Media. As Degroote puts it, "We want to go to the next level and market uman to the right audience," thus pushing ambition beyond Belgium, to countries like the Netherlands and Germany, but eventually the United States.

The recent funding will play an important role in scaling Uman's operations and accelerating product development. Jorg van der Heijden, partner at Holland Capital, has faith in the potentials that Uman holds, stating: "We're especially looking forward to further scaling the team and rolling this out internationally.

The Broader Impact of AI in Sales Enablement

Uman's advancement comes at a time when AI is reshaping the sales enablement landscape. In fact, a recent Salesforce report showed that over 60% of selling professionals indicated that generative AI will increase their ability to serve customers. AI tools are increasingly mainstreamed in the automation of mundane tasks to increase productivity and drive experiences for the customer.

Historically, generic programs that didn't meet the individual challenges of sales teams drove sales enablement. Now, with AI, it makes it possible to provide extremely personalized training and dynamic adjustments in real time based on performance metrics. This shift helps an organization to measure the real impact of enablement investments by moving from completion of training to actual sales success.

Key Considerations to Implement AI in Sales

Key areas of concern that need to be addressed as companies turn to its application in the sales process for their products or services:

• Data Strategy:
Companies must have a firm data strategy to understand what really works with respect to sales. They must properly connect and document data in order to identify sales tactics that work.
• Human-Centric Approach:
Though AI can empower the sales process to a great extent, the actual sales gulf is crossed through human connections. The organization needs to balance between technology and the demand for real customer connection.
• Continuous Development:
There should be a dual investment in AI technology and training for the sales team. Highest performing sales professionals are promoted to serve and capacitated to deal with AI tools appropriately.

Conclusion

With the recent funding, Uman is at a crucial point to help lead a change in the sales enablement market with its AI-driven platform. With a solution particularly oriented towards the subtleties of B2B sales and nuanced insights, Uman is properly positioned to bring sales teams in Europe and beyond to higher productivity and efficiency levels.

As the selling landscape continues to evolve with AI, organizations will have to adapt their ways to deploy these technologies in a manner that is both efficient and effective. The future in sales enablement lies in the hands of those who can provide cutting-edge AI tools with profound knowledge of customer needs, driving even more competitiveness in the B2B market to achieve superior success.

Uman is eager to reshape the future of sales teams and sales enablement, thanks to its groundbreaking approach and the support it receives from valuable investors.