Lavender lands $13.2 million to use AI to help you write better sales emails

ChatGPT is currently dominating the headlines as the dialogue-based AI chatbot impressed millions of users with its writing ability, proficiency in handling complex tasks, and ease of use. But before the popularity of ChatGPT, users including sales teams have been using AI to craft emails and messages that meet the needs of their target audience.

For example, we all hate cold emails from sales marketers. But one tech startup has successfully used its AI-powered email assistant software to help you write better sales emails with increased open rates.

Lavender is a two-year-old New York-based startup that uses AI to combine everything you need to easily write emails that get replies. With its AI-powered email marketing engine, you get real-time AI-driven coaching on your email, research your prospect without leaving your inbox, confirm their email is valid, check if your email will land in SPAM, see how it looks on mobile, plus much more.

In just two years, Lavender has become a go-to platform for sales development reps (SDRs) and account executives (AEs) from the world’s largest companies use Lavender to boost opens and double replies.

Today, Lavender announced it has raised $13.2 million in a Series A funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners. Other backers include Signia Venture Partners and a seed round led by Signia with contributions from CapitalX, Position Ventures, and various angel investors.

Lavender will use the fresh capital infusion to grow its staff of 16 and continue to expand and fill “key roles” throughout the rest of the year. The company has raised a total of $14.2 million to date.

Lavender was founded in 2020 by William Ballance (CEO) and Will Allred. Prior to founding Lavender, the two co-founders were working on Sorter, a tech platform that applied personality and communication psychology to marketing campaigns. Just before launch, the pandemic hit, and with little funding remaining, they pivoted and repackaged Sorter which later became Lavander.

In an email interview, Ballance told TechCrunch: “By combining deep learning on email data with communication and behavioral psychology, Lavender’s AI writing assistant identifies and implements ways to increase reply rates. In today’s climate, teams have to do more with less. While sales team sizes shrink due to layoffs, teams use Lavender to make each rep more effective and efficient.”

Lavender currently has a customer base of around 11,000 sellers at organizations including Twilio, Segment, Sendoso, Sharebite, and Clari.