Investing in MadKudu: the Best Kept Secret in Revenue and Marketing Ops

We first heard about MadKudu in a boardroom. Two boardrooms, actually. The revenue leaders at both companies were presenting about meaningful increases to their lead conversion rates, and they both attributed it to MadKudu, a new product their marketing operations teams had recently adopted. If this tool was so impactful that it was being brought up in two separate board meetings, we knew it was worth investigating.

Today, we’re thrilled to announce that we’re leading MadKudu’s Series A round of funding. MadKudu is a lead-scoring platform that helps go-to-market (GTM) teams use data science to optimize conversion rates throughout their funnels. MadKudu has been helping product-led companies like Figma, Miro, Amplitude and other companies identify their highest value accounts, increase win rates, and achieve revenue sustainability at scale.

There are three key reasons why we’re excited about this company and space:

1. Product-led growth (PLG) adoption is growing. It’s never been easier for buyers to try out software and buy without a drawn-out sales process. PLG has fueled the rise of large companies like Slack, Figma, Miro, and Asana, proving that this sales motion is incredibly effective. While PLG is a great new GTM motion, it does typically come with a large increase in top-of-funnel leads, many of which aren’t always the highest quality and won’t always turn into large enterprise contracts. That’s why it’s important to have a lead-scoring platform like MadKudu, which can parse through the large inflow of new leads and use data science to focus sales teams on the prospects that have the highest likelihood of converting. 
2. Marketing will continue to get more data-oriented. As B2B software marketing has moved away from billboards and brand marketing to digital channels where attribution and unit economics can be meticulously tracked, marketing teams have had to become data experts in order to stay ahead of the competition and maintain high levels of efficiency. Especially in this market, companies can no longer afford to burn cash inefficiently on customer acquisition. Not only do GTM teams need to have the right data-oriented mindset and skill set, but they need the right tools to give them the ability to perform their jobs effectively. GTM leaders will remember the tools that helped them thrive in this new data-driven era, and they’ll be vocal about it as well (hence how we heard about MadKudu).
3. Data quality and infrastructure is getting better every day. Because of how data is architected and stored, to how it’s segmented and analyzed, companies have better access to high quality customer and prospect data than ever before. Getting user data into tools like MadKudu is much easier now than 5-10 years ago (and it will be even easier 5-10 years from now). This trend makes products like MadKudu faster to implement, decreases the time to value, and improves long-term ROI.

MadKudu’s Sam and Francis are committed founders. They’ve had a strong belief for years that marketing operations needs better tools and should be more data-oriented, and today’s environment has validated this belief. This is not a new space, but Sam, Francis, and the MadKudu team have demonstrated the grit to persevere, and they’ve built a product that customers adore. The secret’s out now, and we’re excited to hear MadKudu’s name come up in many future board meetings.