Zomentum continues to double the number of partners every quarter, and is ramping up its staff with new hires.
Shruti Ghatge, Zomentum’s CEO
Zomentum, a startup which makes a sales acceleration platform for MSPs, has announced it has raised its Series A funding round. The $13 million round included Elevation Capital, Accel, both of whom were in the seed funding round and Greenoaks Capital. It also saw participation from seed round investor Eight Roads Ventures.
Zomentum first brought their platform to general availability in late 2019, targeting SMB-focused SMBs with a platform that let them manage their sales funnel throughout its lifecycle.
‘We have grown the number of partners 100% quarter on quarter, and the amount of business done has grown a lot more than that,” said Shruti Ghatge, Zomentum’s CEO and one of its two co-founders, with Rahil Shah, the company’s CTO. “Partners see a 2x increase in closure rates when they use a platform like ours, so it lets them make more money in a quicker period of time.”
Zomentum had planned an aggressive recruiting campaign at MSP-focused events during 2020, which was of course completely derailed by the pandemic. Ghatge said that this resulted in a change of strategy, but it turned out not to pose a major challenge.
“The channel is so community driven and word of mouth is so strong, that as early customers see results, they pass the news on,” she said. “So we naturally evolved from a push-driven way of growing the partner base to a pull-driven model. The new funding round is partly a reflection of this, showing the need for the platform in the market as well as the thriving partner base.”
Unsurprisingly, since the initial stages of the pandemic were generally very positive for MSPs and vendors who provide them with tools, last spring saw a major spike in Zomentum’s business as their platform helped compensate for the absence of face-to-face contact with customers.
“We saw a big spike in March-May as people were moving to Work From Home,” Ghatge said.
Since Zomentum’s platform is one that channel partners use themselves rather than resell, there is practically no limit to the extent of its reach. While the platform remains focused on the SMB space, there is also no reason why it couldn’t be used productively by larger partners.
“We already have quite a few partners who are MSSPs, which is a natural progression as the product matures,” Ghatge indicated.
“We think we will soon be at that inflection point where partners will be forced to be on us,” she added. “Two MSPs in NYC were after the same account. The customer picked the partner with Zomentum because they thought the MSP would be more likely to be top notch, so the one who lost signed up with us so that wouldn’t happen again.”
While most funding rounds divide the money between engineering and Go-to-Market initiatives, and that is the case here, Ghatge said that there will be an emphasis on building additional capabilities that will make MSPs more money.
“Product development will take precedence, and we will be launching new modules with a focus on helping MSPs make more revenue,” she indicated. “That’s what we have decided to build, and you will see at least three new modules during the year.
Ghatge indicated that Zomentum would be investing more in education and community initiatives as well.
“Partners also want thought leadership around sales, and that’s what we are looking to deliver,” she said.
Zomentum has also been expanding their internal resources, something that the new funding will complement. Former Datto executive Mario Pirolozzi joined Zomentum in January as Vice President of Sales. Shannon Mayer, who previously managed channel development at the ASCII Group, came on board late last year as Vice President of Customer Success and is working closely with the IT services community to enhance partner training and education programs.
