The French startup Sidely, which aims to help brands and commercial agencies accelerate their distribution and expand their presence, has just announced it is raising funds of one million euros. Business Cool spoke with Arthur d’Achon, co-founder and CEO of this startup, to learn more about his future projects!
Everything you need to know about Sidely
Who are you ?
I’m Arthur d’Achon, co-founder and CEO of Sidely. Being Franco-British, I completed a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Politics in the United Kingdom, before joining emlyon for a master’s degree to continue my studies. It was also on the benches of EM that I met Alexis Lecomte, one of my two partners. I started my career at Rocket Internet, in France then in Hong Kong, after a brief experience in a consulting firm. It was during my experience in Asia that I really had the opportunity to delve into the world of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) by working on process optimization issues.
I then had the opportunity to join Eudonet, the French CRM leader, and go to London to launch the activity in Great Britain. A year after my arrival, things accelerated following the acquisition of the group by an investment fund, and my position evolved towards the international development of the group, in particular via the acquisition of competitors in Europe.
What does Sidely do?
With Alexis Lecomte and Adrien Jonquet, my two partners, we realized that despite the very large number of CRM software on the market, the equipment rate of companies remained very low in certain sectors. And in particular those for which the geographical dimension is the key component of development: consumer goods, medical, pharmaceutical, industry, or even a large number of professional services.
The reason is simple: verticalized CRMs for these sectors are aging and complex to deploy, and modern CRMs are unsuitable for the many specificities of their businesses. Sidely democratizes access to field CRM thanks to a simple SaaS (Software as a Service) solution, accessible in plug & play, and without implementation costs. Today we equip more than a hundred companies and facilitate the daily lives of their salespeople and management.
Sidely’s fundraising
Why did you raise funds of one million euros?
Our ambition is clear, we want to make Sidely a European leader in Field CRM solutions. And to do this, organic growth alone will not be enough. The Field CRM sector is aging, but it nonetheless remains very competitive. We took part in a real marathon to develop a tool offering a complete functional scope, adapted to the needs of the market. And who says marathon, says endurance…! So we first boosted up in order to lay a healthy foundation and find our Product Market Fit. And once this first objective was achieved, we decided to raise funds to accelerate our development. The completion of this fundraising will allow us to strengthen our sales team, and to continue to develop our R&D division in order to always bring more value to our customers.
Why did you choose to bring business angels into your capital?
At our stage of development, we have oriented our choice towards Business Angels with concrete expertise in three key aspects for Sidely:
- SaaS and Tech
- Our clients’ jobs
- The key needs for a startup (HR, Marketing, Sales, Finance, etc.)
Today we are lucky to be accompanied by around fifteen business angels, including Eugen Gossen, co-founder of Stello, Philippe Reboul, former national sales director of Coca-Cola, Thibaud Hug de Larauze, CEO and co -founder of Back Market, or Julien Stern, co-founder of Universign. Their combined expertise will undoubtedly be a key success factor for our development.
What will Sidely look like in 5 years?
Today, 10% of our customers are outside our borders, and the difficulties encountered by French companies are the same in other European countries:
- Adherence of salespeople to CRM
- Feedback of information from the field
- Consolidation of information
We have focused on consumer goods companies, but our product is agnostic. Beyond expansion outside France, we also want to open new verticals, having the same geographical approach and CRM adoption rates at half mast.
Our 5-year goal is for Sidely to become a major player in Field CRM solutions in Europe.
