German startup acto raises €3.7M to transform B2B sales with active decision intelligence

Germany-based acto, a company that offers active decision intelligence for B2B sales teams, has secured €3.7M in a seed round of funding. 

The investment was led by 468 Capital and Cusp Capital, along with ongoing support from adesso ventures. The round also saw participation from another.vc and business angels such as Benedikt Franke (Planetly) and Niklas Hellemann (SoSafe).

Bardo Droege, investor at 468 Capital, says, “acto’s ability to sift through the noise and deliver precise, actionable decision suggestions is not just enhancing sales efficiency, but also has the potential to augment any function in an organisation, such as logistics or procurement.”

“It is therefore well positioned to completely change the way companies leverage data – connecting data silos and substantially driving tangible business outcomes, and eliminating the guesswork by empowering decision makers to actively decide.” 

Droege adds, “We are confident that acto’s unique approach has the potential to set the gold standard in high-stake and high-volume decision augmentation.”

Helping businesses boost revenue and save time

Founded in 2021 by Pascal Salmen and Andre Stollhans, acto helps B2B sales teams manage complex data efficiently. Drawing from their CRM and ERP expertise, the founders tackle the challenges of data overload and decentralisation.

acto claims that its platform optimises B2B sales data management, merging CRM and ERP expertise to streamline processes. 

It boosts sales efficiency with decision intelligence integration, automating tasks, identifying cross-selling opportunities, and integrating with ERP systems. 

acto’s platform empowers sales teams in wholesale, logistics, and consumables sectors.

Capital utilisation

The proceeds will fuel the acto’s mission to enhance data utilisation for B2B firms and tackle data silo challenges. The funds will propel the company’s expansion and fuel product development, customer acquisition, as well as team expansion.

Furthermore, acto is developing technology to enrich customer data with insights from the open web. This advancement enhances the company’s scoring model and insight prioritisation by incorporating external data sources.

acto, with clients like Rhenus Logistics and Schäfer Shop, currently targets sales teams but plans to expand its product offerings to assist business teams in areas like procurement and logistics.

Co-founder Salmen, says, “In a rapidly evolving market, B2B sales teams are drowning in a sea of data and customer information from BI dashboards, KPI cards, and spreadsheets, struggling to surface the critical insights on customer behaviour and leverage the vast amounts of data at their fingertips.”

“Our partnership with leading investors 468 Capital and Cusp Capital enables us to accelerate our mission to transform data interaction within B2B sales, making every decision impactful.”

Brief about the investors

468 Capital is a tech investment firm founded in 2020, supporting global-minded entrepreneurs. With bases in Berlin and San Francisco, they back “category-defining” businesses and provide strategic and financial aid for international growth. 

The firm claims to be the first institutional investor in Aleph Alpha, which recently raised $500M.

Cusp Capital is a VC firm specialising in European software and technology. It targets early-stage companies poised to redefine their industries through new socioeconomic and technological paradigms.

The firm has invested over €600M in companies like Zalando, Delivery Hero, Klarna, Scalable Capital, data Artisans, Personio, and SoSafe over the last 15 years.