Former Founders Fund VC Sam Blond Launches AI Sales Startup to Upend Salesforce
When Sam Blond left his role as a venture capitalist at Founders Fund a year ago, he bid farewell to the world, stating that the life of a VC wasn't for him and he was returning to the operational side of business (https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/04/brex-sam-blond-leaves-founders-fund/). Just 18 months into his VC career, he was ready for a change.
On Wednesday, Blond officially unveiled his new startup, Monaco (https://www.monaco.com/), co-founded with his brother Brian Blond, an ex-sales professional turned VC. Brian is a partner at Human Capital and previously worked at Sutter Hill. The team is joined by two other co-founders: Abishek Viswanathan, formerly CPO at Apollo and Qualtrics, and Malay Desai, former SVP of engineering at Clari.
Monaco has raised a substantial $35 million in funding, comprising a $10 million seed round and a $25 million Series A round, with both rounds led by Founders Fund and Human Capital. The startup has been quietly testing its AI sales platform through a private beta for some time, but on Wednesday, it opened it up to a public beta.
The well-connected Blond brothers, with Sam's previous experience as head of sales at Brex, also attracted a list of prominent angel investors: Stripe founders Patrick and John Collison, Y Combinator chief Garry Tan, and Greenoaks Capital founder Neil Mehta.
So, what sets Monaco apart in the crowded field of AI sales tech? It offers a unique approach by combining AI-native alternatives with experienced human salespeople as experts in the AI loop. These human experts monitor and guide the AI's work, ensuring it doesn't hallucinate and training it to sell the product. Actual customer meetings are conducted by human representatives, avoiding the use of avatars.
Monaco targets young seed and Series A-level startups with a comprehensive product suite. It includes an AI-native customer relationship management (CRM) system and a custom-built database similar to ZoomInfo for identifying prospects. The AI agents can create and execute email outreach campaigns, draft follow-up emails, and even take meeting notes, automating much of the sales grunt work.
The startup's value proposition is clear: it provides a service that combines technology and human expertise. Unlike other AI sales startups, Monaco doesn't have agents pretending to be sales reps; instead, it offers experienced salespeople to companies that might not be able to hire them directly.
Currently, Monaco's main competition is HubSpot, priced to be more affordable for young companies than the market leader, Salesforce. While Blond declined to disclose Monaco's pricing, he confirmed it's a flat fee, currently discounted during the beta phase.
However, the market is incredibly crowded. Y Combinator has graduated numerous sales startups in the past two years, from AI CRMs to niche AI tools. There are also startups like Attio, Clay, and Conversion, and a growing number of AI SDR (sales-development representative) tools, including human-replacement agentic startups like 11x, Artisan, and 1mind.
Additionally, established companies like Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, and ZoomInfo are offering their own AI and agentic tools. Blond acknowledges the competitive landscape, noting that today's top players were built in a different era and that none of the upstarts have emerged as clear winners.
Despite the competition, Blond is confident in Monaco's potential. He believes that in the broad category of sales technology, Salesforce is currently the market leader. However, he sees Monaco as a pioneer in the early stages of the next platform shift, which will eventually lead to a new market leader.
Blond's passion for sales technology is evident, having spent his entire career in sales. He sees himself as a non-technical founder, and his experience in sales makes him uniquely qualified to lead a sales technology company. The company currently employs around 40 people, and the office is filled with fellow career salespeople, adorned with motivational posters from the WWII era, such as 'Save Startups' and 'Build the future with Monaco.' The office even has a gong that rings every time the AI secures a meeting with a prospect.
