Nicolas and Jonas: Cofounders of Donna announcing their $4.8m Seed round!

0:00Nicolas:Hello and welcome back to the Scaling Europe show. I'm Seb Johnson. I'm here with Jonas and Nicolas who have just announced a$4.8 million seed round led by Frontline Ventures. Thank you so much for joining me. Congratulations.

0:13Jonas:Thanks a lot. Happy to be here.

0:16Nicolas:Amazing. Look, I'm so thrilled with you. This is absolutely great news. For those of you who don't know Donna, maybe Nicolas, can you give us like a super high level introduction? What is the business?

0:26Jonas:Yeah, so Donna is the proactive assistant for field sales reps. So imagine you have a manufacturing company, you have a field force of about 100, 200 people there, sometimes up to several thousands of field reps. They're going out from one meeting to the next. They're really literally going into manufacturing plants, meeting rooms. They drive a lot in their car. and when they actually are traveling from one meeting to the next, they can actually call Donna and they can drop all of their notes, their follow-ups, basically kill all of their sales admin. So by the time they go to the next meeting, they don't have anything to do anymore with the previous one.

1:08Jonas:And on top of that, they're getting coached by Donna how to approach the next meeting. They know actually perfectly what their day looks like. So they're basically having a perfect assistant like you would have an inside sales or someone that would be by your site 24-7. It gives so much time back to the rep so they can devote more time to selling, which is, of course, the goal for everyone here. And it gets actually CRMs adopted or the systems that they typically should use now finally adopted.

1:42Nicolas:Amazing. And, you know, there's a lot of go-to-market tools that we're seeing come up in the kind of the age of AI. This is the first one I've seen about field sales agents specifically. What about that segment has made you want to build a product for them?

1:58Jonas:Yeah, both me and Nicola have experience in selling into big companies. And we were talking about what can we do with AI for sales. And we were talking to these big companies. And they were just telling about the pain of spending millions on the CRM system and not having any data on it. So very difficult to apply any sales enablement solution without any data on it. And yeah, it was a bit of an aha moment, I think, when it came up like twice or three times on three different potential customers. We said like might be a nice thing to do something here in this industry.

2:31Nicolas:And you're live with a bunch of clients already, some really big names out there. Can you touch maybe again on like the product side? What does it look like as a person who's out in the field? How am I interacting with the product, the donor? And kind of what are the benefits that I'm seeing?

2:46Jonas:Yeah, it's very interesting. We try to make it UI-wise very light. So we have a mobile app. It looks very similar to WhatsApp or iMessage. You can just phone with Donna, text her. So the interaction, we try to make it as much as possible as interacting with a real personal assistant. But the most used feature is really calling with Donna. It's also a good connection with CarKit. So people just tend to call her up when they're in the car and just phone with her, speak with her. She's asked questions and they have just a natural conversation. I think that's the most important interface that we have built to interact with our tool.

3:23Nicolas:Amazing. The round is an amazing achievement. $4.8 million frontline ventures. What was it that enabled you to unlock this round right now?

3:34Jonas:um ultimately uh our journey started um i think about one year and a half ago um it you know we were ideating let's say two years ago but one year and a half ago uh we basically launched a little movie that was basically representing this um persona this salesperson on the go um running from one meeting to the next and then basically scrambling with notes in in his car Now, that little movie was like two minutes. It pretty much like went viral. And it literally unlocked reactions from all around the globe. We got basically from Australia to Mexico, people dialing in and say like, hey, we really understand.

4:15Jonas:We see this problem. When is this solution coming? So one and a half year ago, we had like sort of an MVP small solution. We rolled it out for a couple of pilot customers. Now, from these pilot customers, 95 % basically stayed on board and let's say unlocked it for the larger part of their organization, which obviously was a great sign for us, but a great sign for our investors as well. Like this, you could be really onto something. And I think when at the beginning of this year, we really had like very big names knocking on our doors, like saying, yeah, but we have huge field sales teams. Is this actual solution also scalable?

4:55Jonas:And then we proved that the solution is scalable. Having Donna talking with people in Mexico, Indonesia in 40 plus languages. That was sort of the moment when we and the outside world were even more excited because we could now tackle an actual problem with a highly scalable solution and then deploy it internationally. that with the fact that we also got partners like Deloitte, PwC, that officially embraced us and basically brought us into several of the largest manufacturers, life sciences companies, insurers with big field sales teams. I think all of those elements together just accumulated and resulted in this round.

5:43Nicolas:So those partnerships that you have with some of those big firms, What does that look like in practice? Are they taking your tool and helping their customers or clients implement it? How does that work? Yeah.

5:52Jonas:Well, ultimately, every organization today is trying to understand what can we do with AI. And if you look at how they typically operate, they will say like, hey, what are the different use cases that we could enable? And interestingly, we have been identified so many times as sort of the top three. Maybe they'll make a list of 30 and they say like these top three are the ones that we're going to embark on. And because Donna has such a quick time to value, you can easily prove it, you can easily scale it. It has caught the attention of, let's say, the big advisory firms that actually are working on commercial excellence, but also on technology advisory.

6:35Jonas:And typically, those are the two angles that those companies are very much advising the leading companies in the world. And, of course, they need to make sure that the advice they give is indeed going to have a big return on investment, a fast return on investment, and is also going to be at the cusp of disruption, certainly with everything that's going on in the world with AI. So I think sort of those two roads of, let's say, advisors that really want to give the best advice on commercial excellence side, technology side, and us trying to also break into those segments inside the companies. And that's the same personas.

7:15Nicolas:Yeah, I mean, it's amazing validation to get those partners on board. I used to work at PwC, so I can understand the value that they can bring to a business like yours. How is that shaping the way that you're thinking about international expansion? You know, like a lot of these players like PwC or Deloitte, whatever, they have offices all over the world. They have hubs everywhere. Does that mean that you're being pulled in certain places? You know, are you able to get in with one office or one location and then try and spread your way across Europe or the US? How is that relationship changing international expansion for you?

7:48Jonas:Yeah, it's phenomenal. So, of course, we have a Belgian sort of start headquarter. we were immediately picked up by the local PwC Deloitte branches. And I think what typically happens is that the word spreads across EMEA, commercial excellence leadership, and then further spreads across the pond into the US. And that's ultimately what happened, right? It's again, there's a lot of sharing going on between the different membership firms. and we have other partners that, let's say, work, let's say, also across different offices. They spread this knowledge. And the other partnerships that we have with the CRM parties, like Salesforce, like SAP, yeah, it's very similar, right?

8:37Jonas:It always starts from like a little seed and then it spreads, let's say, on a global scale. Of course, naturally, and getting into that topic, is that on the U.S. side, once it's basically, spread across the pond, sometimes a bit easier because there's only like one firm on the US side of things. And then you get a multiplication effect that's even bigger than Europe.

9:00Nicolas:And so how are you thinking about US expansion? Are you live there with customers yet? I know that it's part of the expansion plans coming up. It'd be good to hear about the footprint you have today versus where you want to be in a year. Yeah.

9:14Jonas:I'll, let's say, give a go at that question and I'll hand it also over to Jonas because Because, of course, it's on the one hand, it's go-to-market and sales, but it's also making sure that actually the product is really scaled across. Let's say on the go-to-market side, we immediately, like from the get-go, already like one and a half year ago, we knew that whatever we're going to do on field sales, it is a global company. It's a global and general problem and solution that basically, if you look at the CRM companies like Salesforce, it's used globally. It's used across so many languages, so many countries.

9:51Jonas:So for us, it was critical to have immediately boots on the ground in the US, which we had already last year in New York. But of course, we stayed low and we first wanted to land some big logos in the US. Now, we actually see that we have almost 50-50 when it comes to, let's say, US versus European pipeline. and it's actually going to switch very, very near term to becoming actually more of a US operation in terms of go-to-market and sales and opportunities there. But of course, that's the go-to-market side. We're going to move over sales talent that we have, of course, let work in Europe. We're going to move it over there, but also on the product and on the configuration side, Jonas.

10:41Jonas:Yeah, indeed, like the new configuration, you probably also already heard the term, the forward deployed engineer, like fine tuning is a new configuration. So it's very important for us, both in the pre-sales aspect as in the post-sales, that we have these forward deployed engineers or solution engineers close to the clients to really fine tune how Donna needs to speak, what the playbook is, but also connect to their calendar, CRM system, ERP, to make sure that Donna has access to the required systems. And for that, we need, of course, boots on the ground too in the US. And also we see even during the sales process, because it's AI and they're just bombarded with so many AI vendors that these big enterprises, they really want to make sure, like, is it real?

11:27Jonas:They often call to our customers to double check if it's really working. But we also do some proof of concepts to really take away any doubts to make sure that they really also see the full potential of Donna.

11:38Nicolas:And how are you thinking about building the technical team? A lot of the founders that I speak to who are doing go-to-market in the US, they then build highly technical product-focused teams in Europe. And it's sort of like build in Europe, sell in the US. Is that how you're thinking about it as well? Or do you think you'll end up building a product team out there as well?

11:59Jonas:Yeah, our current strategy is indeed that the engineering team, our product engineering team is very closely together. Because we already were second founders and our CTO, we were able to grab some talent from our previous advancements. ventures to Donna, which is currently based in Ghent in Belgium. And it's very nice for them to be in the same office to really work quickly on features and to release very quickly. But I think in the future, if we really need to look for very much some technical expert in a certain matter, we would be open, of course, for remote positions. But the main thing, like you say, indeed, we want to keep probably our engineering in Europe.

12:37Jonas:And then with the exceptions of some forward deployed engineers or solution engineers, we will have to go to market indeed and scale more globally.

12:47Nicolas:Yeah, and it's interesting what you said, Nicholas, about building global from day one. Lots of founders that I speak to have that mentality, especially when they're coming from a smaller European hub. So I wanted to know, like, what's it like building in Ghent? You know, Ghent is not one of the biggest European tech hubs. You know, it's not like Stockholm or London. How have you found building from that environment? Did you find access to capital was still easy? Access to talent was still easy? How did you find that process?

13:16Jonas:I can very quickly answer that. Let's say, actually, it was not at all that difficult because in a way, Ghent is the up and coming sort of star when it comes to European tech hub. There have been so many successful stories now from companies, you know, big access to capital. and obviously Jonas and I actually are from Ghent and we have actually had our previous companies. We've had exits, but together with us, so many more entrepreneurs that basically provided us with angel funding in the first part of our journey very quickly. So that I think was super nice for us and also on the building side, Jonas.

14:05Jonas:Yeah, we closed our first pre-seed round in three weeks and we wanted to raise a million and a half and we had three million in commitment. So it just went very fast. So access to capital indeed was not an issue in that stage. Sorry, Nicola, go ahead.

14:20Nicolas:No, no, it's great news. No, no, it's amazing to hear. And it definitely feels like that's a trend, that it doesn't really matter where you build. And, you know, that's what I hear from founders time and time again, that this idea that you have to be building in San Francisco or New York or London or Paris to get access to capital is no longer true. And I also want to touch on both of your backgrounds. This is both of yours. Well, this is definitely not your first venture. You've both had successful exits in the past. I want to know, as successful entrepreneurs, there's probably lots of things that you could have built.

14:54Nicolas:There's probably lots of businesses, especially in the age of AI. What about this industry or this problem really excited you?

15:03Jonas:um yeah i think the my background was in financial technology so i had a company called cash force um we also built a global uh company selling to big big corporates uh cash management and forecasting solutions so something very different than of course today on the other hand let's say i um i experienced firsthand how difficult it was to actually operate as a salesperson in the field So I had a sales team, which was literally going from one meeting to the next, typically meeting in person. And what was interesting there is that there's a little anecdote that actually led to the creation of Donna.

15:42Jonas:And that anecdote was that there was a VP sales that was in a lot of times next to me in cabs or cars. And that was actually constantly on the phone. And at one point I said, OK, but who you're always talking to? And he was actually talking to my assistant called Dana, and he was basically making sure that his follow-ups were done, events were planned, his CRM was actually being updated. So when I confronted him with that, he said like, yeah, but I really hate doing all the sales admin. I want to spend more time selling. So I think that story always stuck with me. And it ultimately, that was why I was so passionate about finding a solution ultimately for people that are inherently focused on that social contact and getting deals done through human interaction.

16:31Jonas:And I think that is in the HVAI, that was really something that I always thought like, you know, we can't get away from that human interaction that ultimately these deals depend on. But of course, we can help them by making sure that all of their time is actually better spent. So that led ultimately to Donald.

16:52Nicolas:And what lessons have you learned? And I'd like to hear from both of you on this, like what are the biggest mistakes or learnings? one of the things people always talk about is that first-time founders focus on product, second-time founders focus on distribution. And, you know, that's sort of like, I don't know how true that is. It's just like a nice catchphrase or whatever. But, you know, what are the things that you learned from the first time around that you're now very conscious of and applying the second time around?

17:16Jonas:I think the analogy is actually pretty good because, of course, you learn in the beginning, in the first-time founder journey, you focus so much on the product and maybe a bit too less on the go-to market. I think from day one now, we really focused on finding clients, speaking to clients, and just making sure, of course, we had the resources to build the product in parallel. We have Xander, our CTO, who's also doing a very capable job and then managing the product and the technology. But I think one of the main benefits is really like, indeed, we know how to raise, we know what the terms are based on previous experience.

17:53Jonas:So that went very fast. We know talent. we have made I think a lot of mishires in the past in our previous journey all the best ones or the good ones we were able to grab along on this journey so faster access to capital, hiring the good talents also faster so getting to a point where we are now actually went very fast, we didn't need to overthink it was a bit of a, based on a gut feeling and experience without too much overhead so I think with the baggage we both have we were able to just get to a similar point in time, but a lot more faster, which is a good thing to have, especially with AI.

18:32Jonas:Everything goes very fast. So it's good that we have that experience to also make sure that we can manage the company and grow it in also a very fast way.

18:41Nicolas:Amazing. What about you, Nicholas?