In its pre-seed funding round, startup Notch recently raised €1.1 million. The company develops software for revenue teams that simplifies the B2B sales process by bringing together all elements of the B2B sales process in a common white-label workspace. The team is supported in its development by Startup Port@ TUHH and Startup Port, respectively, who, among other things, helped with the successful application for the EXIST start-up grant.
B2B SaaS stands for Business-to-Business Software-as-a-Service and means that companies sell software to other companies via the internet as a subscription service. Customers can use the software online without installing it locally. B2B SaaS offers flexibility, regular updates and saves costs for hardware and maintenance. Examples of B2B SaaS applications are customer relationship management (CRM) software, project management tools, accounting software and collaboration platforms. These types of software solutions have gained popularity in recent years as they help companies work more efficiently, reduce costs and access current technologies without deploying extensive internal IT resources.
Challenges in B2B SaaS sales
Meanwhile, B2B SaaS sales has become so complex that sales teams now use 4-7 different tools to manage collaboration and communication with buyers. This often leads to endless email traffic, chats, attachments and phone calls. This leads to frustration on both sides as important notes and documents are not in one place and important next steps are easily lost in endless emails and scattered documents. The result is longer sales cycles and potentially bouncing customers.
“In a world where email inboxes are always full and SaaS competition is on the rise, sales teams are forced to differentiate themselves not only by the product they offer, but also by the way they sell. Emails with attachments no longer achieve this and result in a sub-optimal customer experience and missed opportunities. The biggest pain points for revenue teams include alignment with the buying team, customer management and buyer engagement,” explains Viktor Kessler, Co-Founder of Notch.
The goal of Notch
Startup Notch is designed to simplify the buying and onboarding experience by bringing all elements of the deal together in a common digital workspace. This promotes a seamless interaction between buyers and sellers from initial demo to full onboarding.
Notch’s solution
At the heart of Notch is a modular white-label workspace that enables sales teams to collaborate with buyers on a deal without having to rely on other tools. Inspired by next-generation productivity tools like Notion, Notch provides simple building blocks for collaboration between buyers and sellers.
“Notch is designed to cover all steps in the buying journey and integrate seamlessly into a modern sales tech stack without media disruption,” highlights Tim Dethlefsen, Co-Founder and Product Manager of Notch.
Convincing customer experience
The startup wants to make B2B buying and onboarding as easy and friendly as it is known today only from the consumer sector, where the topic of customer experience has arrived: “Instead of juggling emails and endless tools, we believe there needs to be a place where buyers and sellers can align on goals and coordinate next steps,” Tim continues.
Kilian von Berlichingen, Senior Investment Manager at High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), is enthusiastic: “As B2B buyer expectations have evolved, a seamless buying process is becoming both more important and more complex. At HTGF, we believe Notch can become the preferred software for buyers and sellers to collaborate.”
About Notch
Notch is a modular buying-selling collaboration workspace that simplifies B2B sales from initial demo to customer success by bringing together all elements of the sales process into a single, buying-focused workspace.
Founded in 2021 by Viktor Kessler, Tim Dethlefsen, Devin Lemcke and Alex Sandau, Notch is a remote-first company with most team members working from Hamburg or Berlin. However, the startup also has employees in Italy, Hungary and other countries.
The team is supported by Startup Port@ TUHH or beyourpilot in the development of the company, the initial request for this came in August 2019. Among other things, it was helped to successfully apply for the EXIST start-up grant (1.11.2020 to 1.10.2021).
Notch is now open for a 14-day free trial, offering concierge onboarding for the first teams to sign up this week. Means the Notch team will set up a Mutual Action Plan for free and support you with templates. You can sign up for a free trial for the digital distribution space here: https://www.notch.so/
About High-Tech Gründerfonds
Seed investor High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) finances technology start-ups with growth potential and has backed more than 700 start-ups since 2005. With the launch of its fourth fund, HTGF manages around 1.4 billion euros. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digital tech, industrial tech, life sciences, chemicals and related industries. More than 4.5 billion euros of capital have been invested in HTGF’s portfolio by external investors in over 2,000 follow-on financing rounds to date. In addition, the fund has already successfully sold shares in more than 160 companies.
The investors in the public-private partnership fund include the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, KfW Capital and 45 companies from various industries.
