Consensus Raises $110 Million from Sumeru Equity Partners to Accelerate Growth

By AIT News Desk On Mar 9, 2023

Leading demo automation platform closes largest funding round in company history to scale enterprise presales

Consensus, the leading intelligent demo automation platform, announced it has raised $110 million from Sumeru Equity Partners (“Sumeru”).

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Consensus, the first Intelligent Demo Automation Platform focused on scaling Presales teams with interactive video demos, received $110M from Sumeru Equity Partners to accelerate growth and category leadership. As economic uncertainty looms and enterprise software companies are focused on doing more with less, intelligent demo automation has become a necessity to drive growth and efficiency.

B2B buyers today seek a digital-first, sales supported approach rather than a calendar-heavy buying process. Providing automated demos on demand allows Consensus customers to sell through a buyer-focused model called Buyer Enablement, a method Garin Hess, CEO and founder of Consensus, developed in his book Selling is Hard. Buying is Harder.

Using Consensus, sales engineering teams build a reusable library of interactive demos. Sales reps then send self-directed product demos that use a proprietary method to automatically personalize the content to the buyer based on the customer persona, stage of sales cycle and specific interests, without taxing presales teams. As the buyer shares the demo with others stakeholders in their organization, Consensus automatically discovers and engages previously hidden stakeholders in the buying group. This frictionless approach speeds up the buyer’s product education and streamlines the sales process, enabling Presales and Sales teams to compress buying cycles, reallocate internal time savings to high-value activities, and close more deals with fewer resources.

Consensus has achieved remarkable growth through its innovative solution that has been embraced by a blue-chip roster of large enterprise customers including 15 of the largest 30 software companies. Gartner expects market adoption of digital sales solutions to accelerate with 80% of B2B sales interactions occurring in digital channels by 2025.

“Consensus created a transformational product with a strong value proposition that is uniquely suited to modern sales processes post-COVID, enabling customers to grow faster via improved sales conversion rates while saving money by operating more efficiently,” said Sumeru Managing Director Jason Babcoke. “Despite challenging macroeconomic conditions, Consensus continues to maintain high growth, increasing revenue by 60% in 2022. We believe the company has just begun to scratch the surface and is ready to scale its product into a category leader.”

“Our offering combines a sophisticated, enterprise-grade product with a philosophical shift that has led many of the world’s biggest enterprise software companies to re-orient their entire sales approach to a buyer enablement model that reduces friction and accelerates the buying process,” said Consensus Founder and CEO Garin Hess. “We are excited to move forward in the next phase of our growth with the help of a unique partner in Sumeru, who brings an impressive track record of success in helping companies aggressively pursue and achieve category leadership.”

Sumeru provides growth capital, scaling partnership, and operating expertise to leading enterprise software companies. The firm partners with founders and management to scale their businesses–prioritizing organic growth levers in product leadership, go-to-market acceleration and growth culture. Along with Babcoke, Sumeru Managing Director and COO Randy Randleman and Vice President Nathan Stanley will join the Consensus Board of Directors.

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