Outreach CEO Manuel Medina.
Outreach CEO Manuel Medina

Seattle-based sales technology startup Outreach has raised $17.5 million in a new round of funding led by Trinity Ventures, with involvement from Microsoft Ventures and previous investors.

The company will use the funds from the Series B round to expand its engineering team — further developing its automation and workflow technology for sales professionals — and expand its marketing team to reach new customers.

Outreach still has funds left over from its $9.2 million Series A investment round last fall, but decided to raise additional funds to accelerate its growth, said Outreach CEO Manuel Medina via phone this morning. Medina, the former GroupTalent CEO, previously worked in business development at Microsoft.

“The environment is very competitive, but this positions us well with a big cash war chest and the ability to bring in more engineers and double down in the parts where we’re strong, which is product and engineering,” said Medina.

One of Outreach’s competitors, InsideSales.com, has raised more than $200 million in funding.

Outreach currently employs 80 people, and Medina says he expects that number to double over the next year.

The company’s technology is used by sales professionals at companies including Adobe, CenturyLink, Adroll, AppDynamics, and Zillow, allowing them to follow proven, customizable workflows for communicating with clients and prospects. Outreach also automates emails and other communications. It currently integrates with Salesforce’s CRM technology, and Medina said support for Microsoft Dynamics was already in the works.

In addition, Outreach is now expanding to use Microsoft’s Azure cloud technology as well as Amazon Web Services.

Outreach is the latest investment for Microsoft Ventures, a new venture fund announced in May. The investment was already in the works prior to Microsoft announcing its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, but Medina says that deal underscores the need for intelligent workflows and automated systems needed to fully capitalize on a growing amount of data available to sales professionals.

Previous investors Mayfield, MHS Capital and Floodgate also participated in the new round of funding.

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