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  • Writer's pictureEric Kingsbury
    • Jun 1, 2023

CS Angel Invests In UpdateAI $2.3M Seed Round To Make CSMs More Productive

CS Angel brings experts in Net Revenue Retention (NRR) the opportunity to invest in the next generation of tech designed to make their teams more effective. Find out why we invested alongside Zoom Ventures, Ideallab, Stage Venture Partners, Trousdale Ventures, Umami Capital and Neman Ventures, a16z's scout fund, and Howard Morgan in UpdateAI’s $2.3 Million Seed round.


Customer Success is consumed with busy work. We’ve all seen it firsthand, and it’s killing productivity. While the average Customer Success Manager is expected to spend 80% of their week - roughly 32 hours - with customers and 20% on administrative work, it’s more common to see those numbers skew closer to 60/40 - there has to be a better way.


Thankfully, there is, and that’s why CS Angel is thrilled to be investing in an incredible solution to the busywork problem - UpdateAI.


Founded by Josh Schacter and Bill Gross, UpdateAI aims to make Customer Success the heart of every organization by unlocking the insights that come out of everyday customer conversations that often get lost because CSMs are overloaded with busy work.


Mickey Powell, the Head of GTM at UpdateAI, puts it like this, Customer Success is “having all of these conversations, and that data in that conversation, what's happening? The really important moments like the risks and the opportunities, it's all getting lost. It's like buying a bunch of bananas, and you tear all but one off and throw it in the trash.”


How UpdateAI Saves CSMs Time and Makes Them More Productive


UpdateAI does this by integrating with Zoom and employing ChatGPT to generate what they’re calling Smart Meeting Summaries™, offering concise meeting overviews and automating post-call tasks like sending follow-up emails to customers.


And it’s already proving to be a gamechanger for CSMs. With users telling the team it’s saving them a minimum of 10 minutes per day per meeting.


That’s potentially an hour or more time saved each day - a truly massive improvement.


One CSM already using UpdateAI gave us his (absolutely glowing) feedback: “UpdateAI gives me time back in my day and helps me focus on what matters. As a CSM, I have limited bandwidth; every context switch adds to it. With UpdateAI, I can add to my book of business without giving up on preparing and following up on meetings in my standards.”


The Elephant in the Room: Gong


The first question everyone has (us too!) for UpdateAI is: Aren’t you going head-to-head with Gong?


“Gong, I think, is great for sales,” says Josh. “It bleeds sometimes into CS, but it doesn’t save time.”


UpdateAI, on the other hand, is focused on Customer Success use cases, like meeting recaps and preempting churn by breaking down the types of comments and sentiment that indicate risk and to churn. “That’s unique from Gong,” Josh emphasized.


Why We Invested


It was clear to our Angels from the jump just how impactful UpdateAI’s technology could be for CS, not just saving CSMs time but helping them drive the outcomes that matter most to their customers and, in turn, increase renewals.


Angel and FloQast Director of Support and Expert Services, Alex Pukos, was impressed: “UpdateAI is poised to help CSMs drive exceptional client outcomes with the efficiency that today’s Customer Success departments demand.”


CS Angel Founder Gemma Cipriani-Espineira was even more optimistic, “Finding ways for CSMs to spend more time helping customers is a huge lever for anyone looking to improve Net Revenue Retention. UpdateAI automates the daily admin tasks of customer meeting summaries and follow up, freeing up time for CSMs to focus on higher value work.“ 


Speaking to Josh and Mickey, we saw nearly-limitless opportunities for UpdateAI to improve Customer Success, by streamlining the workstreams of CSMs and highlighting contributors to churn before they become a problem. That’s why we’re thrilled to have them as part of our inaugural class of investments."

Become an angel investor and join the CS Angel waitlist.

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