Kluster scales up

We are delighted to announce Newable EIS Scale Up Fund 3 (“SUF 3”) as being a part of a total £650,000 investment round in Kluster.

Kluster was co-founded by Dan Thompson and Rory Brown in 2016 to provide flexible, end-to-end sales analytics and forecasting for B2B companies.

A clustered market

Kluster’s core business model is to solve a very specific data issue for corporate clients. Increasingly, in an age of big data, businesses aren’t leveraging that data effectively enough for pipeline management and reporting. Existing CRM systems tend to generate vague reports, that can lead to targets being missed, longer sales cycles, and disparity between executive level strategy and function level execution.

Kluster’s platform addresses these problems by using three AI tools; tensorflow, scikit-learn and spark that provide forensic analysis on companies’ customer data and generate sales leads as a result.

The forecasting capabilities of Kluster’s platform enable companies to better manage existing and future expenditure so as to avoid losing potential commercial revenue by not understanding the needs of their customers in as much detail.

Furthermore, when the current macro-economic environment is considered, companies cannot just focus on reducing costs, they will also need to adapt to a changing landscape where mass digitisation and automation are now becoming the norm. In his recent book, Digital Transformation, renowned Silicon Valley entrepreneur Thomas Siebel notes that the average lifespan of an S&P 500 company was 60 years in the 1960s, a figure that plummeted to 20 in 2012. Mr Siebel’s message was simple. Companies that do not adopt the four pillars of digitisation (AI, IOT, Cloud Computing and Big Data) will very soon cease to exist.

With Kluster providing clients with predictive management capabilities of how the commercial aspect of their business is performing, Kluster’s technology sits at the heart of the four pillars of digitalisation. As a result, Kluster are already starting to secure a number of new clients including Cision, Saba Software and Salary Finance while a partnership has also been formed with the rapidly expanding UK company, Cognism.

Reflections on the Round

NVL, in partnership with SuperSeed, a UK based B2B Investment Fund, completed their investments in Kluster in March 2020, with the total investment round being £650,000.

Avantika Gupta, NVL’s Associate Investment Director believes that the long-term prospects for Kluster are strong.

“For NVL to have invested at this challenging time for the UK economy is reflective of our belief that Kluster’s business model and technology are capable of weathering economic downturns. On behalf of everyone at NVL I would like to welcome Kluster to the Newable group and we look forward to working closely with the team in the future”.

For Dan Thompson, Kluster’s future priorities are clear.

“The vision for Kluster is unequivocal, that we want to become Europe’s leading provider of sales analytics. To achieve this, we will continue to put our client’s interests and needs first, while also looking to scale our platform and hire a number of staff to focus on the commercial aspect of Kluster. I would also like to thank the NVL team for the confidence that you have placed in us as a company, and we look forward to working with you and your team in the coming months.”

 

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