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Sales and software are a match made in heaven: just ask Salesforce or even Hubspot or Creatio, all of which have built multi-billion dollar companies atop customer relationship management software suites specifically focused on sales teams.
But are all of those firms missing out on an opportunity right under their noses? Resquared (also known as Re ² ) thinks so.
The Y Combinator-backed, fully remote startup revealed to VentureBeat recently that it successfully closed a $5 million seed round for its B2B sales tool focused specifically on reaching local businesses across the U.S., those that may not have much or any online footprint except for consumer-facing social tools like Facebook pages and Instagram accounts.
"We invest a lot of our own team's time and research towards figuring out what is the most effective way to reach local businesses," said Griffin Morris, Resquared's co-founder and CEO, in a teleconference interview with VentureBeat conducted last week. "They're typically not on LinkedIn, but if you reach out to a business through their Facebook or Instagram page, you can get a 20% reply rate and it's often from the owner of the business. So that's how we start all of our product development: with best practices."
Already, Resquared claims to have collected data on more than 11 million SMBs throughout the U.S. and Canada. It offers a "suite of AI-powered email and social media messaging tools."
"We have thousands of sales reps on the platform and hundreds of sales organizations as clients," Morris told me. "A lot of our growth comes from investing in content and our clients sharing their positive experiences on social media."
This funding round was spearheaded by SNR's Kevin Patrick Mahaffey, alongside 1984 Ventures, Merus Capital, Oleg Rogynskyy from People.ai, Don Tepman, famously known as "StripMallGuy" (with 230,000+ followers on X) and Twenty Two Ventures.
The infusion of capital will expedite Resquared's mission to establish a new segment of B2B sales, tailored to meet the unique challenges of reaching small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
The problem: 400,000 sales reps focused on local biz, but using the wrong tools for the job
More than 400,000 sales representatives in the U.S. currently target local businesses, according to research obtained by Resquared, selling everything from real estate leases on new locations within cities to restaurant and office supplies to, of course, software tools.
However, these local salespeople often resort to outdated methods like door-to-door sales or telemarketing for lead generation.
While some use platforms like ZoomInfo or enterprise CRMs, these tools typically rely on LinkedIn data, which only 10% of local business owners use.
This disconnect results in inefficient outreach efforts, with local businesses receiving numerous spam messages and having limited vendor choices.
How Resquared provides salespeople with a data advantage to reach local SMBs
Resquared aims to solve this issue by supporting thousands of sales reps with campaigns that boast open rates twice the industry average.
The platform provides a higher return on investment through increased revenue and time saved, with clients reporting up to 30% increases in monthly sales.
It relies on a combination of AI-driven automated outreach over email and social media, and its underlying local business data, as well as comprehensive analytics to track performance of said messages to prospective customers.
"We have always had AI and machine learning features, studying interactions and data to figure out what works best," Morris explained. "We use proprietary machine learning features and open AI APIs to enhance our platform."
Pricing for Resquared's platform varies depending on the number of users and is customized for each client.
"If you had a sales team with five reps, starting on the platform would be around $1,000 a month," Morris ssaid. "Every client gets one-on-one onboarding and training to ensure high-quality and personalized sales processes."
Kevin Patrick Mahaffey of SNR commented on the investment in the release, stating, "Selling software online is like living in the future: AI-enabled tools at every layer of the stack, sophisticated pipelines, and highly orchestrated processes. Selling to real-world businesses, however, looks about the same as it did 30 years ago. Resquared gives superpowers to sales teams engaging with local businesses so main street can benefit from the onward march of progress as well."
Origin story
Resquared was born from the shared experiences of its founders, Morris and Tyler Carlson, who have both focused their careers on the intersection of tech and the brick-and-mortar economy.
Morris began his career selling door-to-door to local businesses before transitioning to product management.
"I had a sales job where my quota was to walk into 40 local businesses a day in St. Louis, Missouri. Twelve years later, that's still how it's done for the most part," noted Morris. "Companies often rely on high volume, low-quality marketing outreach like call centers."
Carlson, on the other hand, worked closely with major brick-and-mortar franchises with thousands of local outposts including Subway and Burger King, helping them modernize their stores with technology.
Building on this foundation, Resquared emerged with a vision to not just improve sales processes but to create an entirely new segment of B2B sales from the ground up.
The team developed targeted playbooks based on local business needs, evolving into a comprehensive platform powered by a feedback loop of data-driven best practices, AI workflows, and automation. Resquared also offers free courses, playbooks, and a podcast titled "Selling Local."
Initial success stories
As mentioned previously, Resquared provides a database and instant access to more than 11 million local businesses, using AI to automate high-quality, personalized outreach.
Clients include publicly traded retail landlords such as Kimco, marketing agencies specializing in SEO, commercial services companies ranging from pest control to maintenance, commercial insurance, small business lending, and suppliers.
During an interview, Morris elaborated on Resquared's approach. "We also gather data from public government records, social media sites, and information that businesses share on their websites. It's messy data, but we clean, organize, and match it to ensure quality."
Growth and future outlook
Resquared is experiencing rapid growth, with thousands of sales reps and hundreds of sales organizations using the platform.
The company plans to use the new funding to expand its sales and engineering teams, focusing on an ambitious product roadmap.
Currently, Resquared operates primarily in the U.S. and Canada, supporting a wide range of clients from billion-dollar publicly traded companies to regional businesses with significant sales teams.
The company is fully remote, with team members spread across various hubs like New York, Southern California, and Florida. Morris himself operates out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while co-founder Carlson works out of Tampa, Florida.
This flexibility allows Resquared to hire the best talent from anywhere while maintaining strong team cohesion through regular in-person meetings and conferences.
With this fresh injection of capital and a clear mission, Resquared is poised to revolutionize B2B sales for local business vendors, bringing high-quality, personalized sales techniques to a traditionally underserved market segment. To learn more about how Resquared is changing the game for companies targeting local businesses, visit Re2.ai.
