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Attention Raises $14M by Automating Sales Calls and Adding $1.2M to Its Pipeline

There was nothing to record calls or transcribe the conversation, so it was hard to get volume out of these conversations.

When Anis Bennaceur and Matthias Wickenburg first met, they were competitors, each building their own startup. Bennaceur was focused on Swipecast, a career platform for creative professionals, while Wickenburg was developing Mixer, a similar venture. But the two entrepreneurs bonded over a shared frustration: sales calls. Both experienced the inefficiencies of these calls firsthand—lack of insights, no automatic transcription, and difficulty in tracking important takeaways.

Attention’s mission? To help sales teams focus on what they do best—selling—while its AI takes care of the details. The company plans to use its fresh funding to automate even more business tasks, with Bennaceur envisioning a future where sales teams run almost on autopilot. “We want companies to have as lean of a team as possible that generates 100x the outputs you used to be able to do before,” he said.

A Rocky Start and a Game-Changing Pivot

Bennaceur and Wickenburg first met as competitors. Bennaceur was working on Swipecast, a platform for creative professionals, while Wickenburg was building Mixer, a direct competitor. But they soon realized that they shared a common frustration—sales calls were inefficient. “It was hard to know what was happening,” Bennaceur said. “There was nothing to record calls or transcribe the conversation, so it was hard to get volume out of these conversations.”

Their mutual understanding led them to join forces in 2021 to found Attention. Initially, the company focused on AI-driven coaching tools for sales reps, but the product struggled to find product-market fit. After eight months of iteration, they pivoted in mid-2022 to develop a new solution: using AI to transcribe sales calls and automatically fill out CRMs, significantly reducing the manual workload for sales teams.

This pivot has been pivotal. In January 2023, Attention raised a $3.1 million seed round, which allowed the startup to further develop its AI capabilities. Now, with an additional $14 million in Series A funding, the company is gearing up to expand its suite of AI tools.

The Funding Round: Who’s Backing Attention?

The $14 million Series A round was led by Alven, a French venture capital firm with a track record of backing innovative startups. Attention’s existing investors—Eniac, Frst, and Liquid2 Ventures—also participated in the round, along with new investors 645 Ventures and Aglae. The funding comes at a time when AI-driven automation in sales is a hot commodity, with enterprises seeking ways to boost productivity and reduce costs.

The AI That Powers Sales Teams

At its core, Attention’s AI technology analyzes sales team calls and automatically generates action items like follow-up emails and updates in Salesforce. This cuts down on manual data entry and ensures that sales teams don’t miss critical information. The AI can also flag customers at risk of churn and provide detailed scorecards for sales reps, helping them better manage their pipeline.

But Bennaceur and Wickenburg’s vision goes far beyond CRM automation. With the new funding, they plan to build additional features that handle even more of the sales process, from preparing handover notes and managing customer tickets to handling email correspondence and analyzing sales data. “We spent a lot of time building an engine,” Bennaceur explained. The long-term goal is to create a seamless system that automates as much of the sales workflow as possible, freeing up teams to focus on closing deals rather than administrative tasks.

Building an AI-Powered Sales Machine

The funding isn’t just about building new features—it’s about scaling the company’s operations to match the growing demand in enterprise tech. Bennaceur and Wickenburg knew they needed to go the VC route to compete in a crowded market and hire top-tier engineering talent to continue refining their AI platform. Unlike Bennaceur’s previous company, Swipecast, which was bootstrapped during its six-year run, the founders recognized the need for external capital to fuel Attention’s growth.

Beyond raising capital, Attention has also refined its outbound sales strategy, adding $1.2 million to its pipeline in just four months. They’ve built a step-by-step playbook that orchestrates signal-based outbound campaigns, leveraging automation and data to target the right prospects at the right time. This strategy has helped them land key clients and rapidly expand their customer base.

Their process includes defining the ideal customer profile, using Apollo.io to build target account lists, enriching and scoring accounts with Cargo, and deploying targeted outreach waves.Here’s how their process works:

  1. Defining Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP): The team identifies key traits of their ideal customers, creating 1-3 buyer personas. Attention emphasizes focusing on one persona per campaign for targeted outreach.
  2. Building TAM, SAM, and SOM Lists in Apollo.io: Attention starts with existing account data and then expands their lists using ICP filters, applying lead scoring to tier their segments.
  3. Enriching and Scoring Accounts in Cargo (YC S23): Using Cargo’s platform, Attention imports and analyzes its SAM list, finds lookalike accounts with Ocean, and enriches account data with waterfall research.
  4. Setting Up Targeted Outreach Waves: Attention groups high-score accounts into themed waves, customizing outreach messaging for each wave to optimize results.
  5. Multi-Channel Outreach Enrollment: Using AI tools like Instantly.ai and La Growth Machine, the team automates sequence enrollment and personalizes messaging across multiple channels.
  6. Monitoring and Optimizing Campaigns: The team tracks key metrics and continuously tests, learns, and iterates on their campaigns to refine their strategies further.

By automating much of this process, Attention has been able to significantly scale its sales efforts while keeping team sizes lean. Their goal is to make it easier for companies to operate with smaller sales teams that produce outsized results.

With its new round of funding, Attention has set its sights on automating even more business tasks. Bennaceur envisions a future where sales teams can operate on autopilot, with AI preparing handover notes, managing email correspondence, and analyzing customer interactions from start to finish.

The team’s vision doesn’t stop at transcription and CRM updates. They want to create a comprehensive AI solution that handles customer tickets, mitigates churn risk, and ensures that companies can operate with leaner teams that generate exponentially higher outputs.

“We want companies to have as lean of a team as possible that generates 100x the outputs they could before,” Bennaceur explained.

Picture of Anshika Mathews
Anshika Mathews
Anshika is an Associate Research Analyst working for the AIM Leaders Council. She holds a keen interest in technology and related policy-making and its impact on society. She can be reached at anshika.mathews@aimresearch.co
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