Tel Aviv-based B2B buyer-seller network Aligned has announced the completion of a $5.8 million seed round led by Hetz Ventures and NFX, with participation from global strategic sales leaders and angel investors. The investment is a sign of increasing interest in the B2B sales enablement technology space.
Aligned has created shared online workspaces for B2B buyers and sellers to accelerate the deal process, which the company plans to use as the foundation for a B2B buyer-seller network in which stakeholders can access deal communication from a central dashboard, create profiles that establish their credentials, and execute deals within assigned deal rooms.
"B2B buying and selling is a chaotic process involving numerous stakeholders and often months of back and forth, with many blind spots and moving parts to control," says Gal Aga, CEO and co-founder of Aligned. "These modern times present a game-changing opportunity to make buying and selling more impactful for both sides, even enjoyable. We're passionate about leading this change to make the B2B buying and selling experience frictionless, collaborative, and streamlined."
Emphasis on buyer engagement
Understanding buyer intent is a crucial aspect of B2B sales that until now, has largely been lacking among sales tech solutions. In fact, Gartner reports that 77% of B2B buyers report to have experienced complex or difficult purchase journeys, something sellers are becoming increasingly familiar with.
Aligned aims to revamp the lackluster buying experience by creating a more efficient and transparent forum for collaborating with B2B sellers that keeps buyers in the loop with all deal-related activity, such as deal progress and status updates. Typically, buyers have to chase emails from sellers (and vice versa) and refer to chains several emails deep. Aligned removes these roadblocks, giving buyers and sellers alike a seamless experience. For example, from within Aligned's shared workspaces, buyers and sellers can hold all deal-related communications and share deal-related materials in one place and can collaborate directly from within the room. Buyers and sellers can tag each other with questions and receive answers promptly.
AI-powered insights for sellers
For sellers, Aligned provides AI-generated buyer insights that include engagement alerts for seller workspaces, helping them analyze sales collateral, drill down into discussions, and react in real time when buyers view important information.
Sellers can also identify how multi-threaded the deal is and access deal analytics such as time spent evaluating a product and deal-cooling signs. Aligned notifies sellers of new stakeholders entering a deal room and helps them address concerns. For example, the platform offers buyer behavioral insights such as reduced engagement in viewing pricing pages or delays during the signature stage. Sellers can white-label Aligned's platform, giving customers a consistent brand experience that accelerates deal closure.
Enhancing B2B sales collaboration
The lack of collaborative technology in B2B sales has long been a pain point. Sellers often complain about struggling to consolidate deal communication while buyers effectively wander in the dark due to ineffective communication channels.
"Aligned has identified a major gap in the sales tech market that demands a more effective collaborating experience that enables both parties to stay focused on their long-term goals," said James Currier, General Partner at NFX. "By creating the first and only network for buyers and sellers that's fully focused on improving the customer journey, Aligned is tapping into the root of B2B sales inefficiency to pioneer the next household name for buyer-seller interactions."
Aligned plans on using the funds from this round to accelerate the development of its B2B buyer-seller network and embed more AI-powered deal analytics into its platform.
