Sales Software Startup Yesware Adds $13.5M Led by Battery Ventures

Boston-based Yesware, which makes e-mail software for salespeople, has raised $13.5 million in a bid to accelerate its growth.

Battery Ventures led the investment, which also featured Yesware’s existing backers: Google Ventures, Foundry Group, Golden Venture Partners, and IDG Ventures. With the new cash, Yesware has raised a total of $18.5 million in venture investments.

In a blog post today, CEO Matthew Bellows says he was looking for investors who could help the startup eventually become a public company. As for immediate plans, Bellows says the details of Yesware’s growth will be revealed “in the coming months and years.”

Yesware’s product is an e-mail plugin that helps salespeople keep on top of who is reading and responding to their messages. Users also can collaborate with their co-workers and share e-mail templates.

The company now has more than 30 employees and some 300,000 users.

In a press release, Battery’s Neeraj Agrawal says the firm thinks sales software could follow the example of “marketing automation” software, which has spawned a new class of high-growth startups over the past few years.

“At Battery, we saw similar innovation in the field of marketing automation and invested in successful companies like Marketo and ExactTarget as a result—we believe sales-effectiveness will experience the same disruptive adoption curve,” he says.

Author: Curt Woodward

Curt covered technology and innovation in the Boston area for Xconomy. He previously worked in Xconomy’s Seattle bureau and continued some coverage of Seattle-area tech companies, including Amazon and Microsoft. Curt joined Xconomy in February 2011 after nearly nine years with The Associated Press, the world's largest news organization. He worked in three states and covered a wide variety of beats for the AP, including business, law, politics, government, and general mayhem. A native Washingtonian, Curt earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. As a past president of the state's Capitol Correspondents Association, he led efforts to expand statehouse press credentialing to online news outlets for the first time.