New York-based Attention, which uses AI to transform customer interactions to drive sales, has closed a $14 million Series A round led by Paris-based Alven, whose notable bets include fintech Stripe. Other investors included New York’s Eniac Ventures and 645 Ventures, Aglae, Frst and Liquid2.
Founded in 2021 by former entrepreneurs and rivals Anis Bennaceur and Matthias Wickenburg, Attention gleans valuable customer data from customer relationship management (CRM) software to identify actionable insights.
“Automating CRM entry out of customer conversations and writing follow-up emails was just the beginning. There is so much more to do out of these precious interactions,” said Bennaceur, a French-born who holds an M.B.A. from France’s ESCP Business School. Bennaceur previously founded and ran Mixer, another sales platform.
Wickenburg, a Harvard engineer who previously co-founded Swipecast, said Attention has built a system of cognition that continuously learns and improves, delivering better results over time. “We believe that our technology will not only enhance jobs but also redefine them, making sales teams more efficient and effective than ever,” he said.
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Over the long term, Attention believes its technology can fully automate routine tasks handled by revenue and sales teams, enabling them to focus on more strategic activity.
“Attention’s Generative AI native capabilities are a paradigm shift to a system of cognition for the revenue function — they can effectively clone top performers by extracting features out of successful sales deals while at the same time dramatically enhance productivity,” said Thomas Cuvelier, general partner at lead investor Alven. “Anis and Matthias have an exceptional eye for product, and have built a compelling proposition in what is a very large, fast-growing, and dynamic market.”
Attention plans to use the new funding to expand its marketing, product and engineering teams. The company claims a 10x growth in revenue this year. Its customers include Crunchbase, BambooHR, Aircall and Clay.
