DemoChimp, the leading provider of intelligent B2B demo automation software, today announced that it has rebranded as CONSENSUS. This new company identity crystallizes the company's strategy to provide automated stakeholder engagement and analytics tools to drive agreement among diverse internal buyers and close more sales more rapidly. As part of this rebranding, CONSENSUS has completed a $4.2 million Series A funding round to support expansion of its mission, led by Peak Ventures with participation from CEB and super angel Nobutaka Mutaguchi.

All B2B marketing and sales organizations ultimately face the same barrier to success: group buying dysfunction. As DemoChimp, the company successfully deployed a scalable solution that replaced repetitive live sales demos with intelligent, automated demos personalized to each decision maker. This scalable approach drives profitable purchase decisions for technical solutions that touch multiple departments and involve diverse groups of stakeholders by turning that dysfunction into consensus.

'CONSENSUS describes our customers' needs and the value we deliver, all in a single word,' said CEO and Founder Garin Hess. 'We're delivering powerful and scalable automated tools for sales and marketing professionals that overcome buying dysfunction and drive the agreement they need to get profitable deals done quickly.'

CONSENSUS makes it possible for sales and marketing professionals to create interactive customized demo videos that give each buyer an overview of a product's value proposition. Buyers then rate the relative importance of video segments that explain different aspects of the offering's value proposition according to their unique interests, revealing both the identity and motivation of each stakeholder. The CONSENSUS platform plays the videos in a personalized sequence, and at a level of detail tailored to each buyer's interests. CONSENSUS' proprietary Demolytics™ dashboard shows customers when a buyer watches their demo, what's important to them and who they shared it with -- so salespeople can tailor their messages to the buying group's shared priorities.

'Contrary to popular belief, there are no complex sales,' says Hess. 'Only complex purchases. It's not about the seller anymore, it's all happening in the buying group. With more than five people on average in every B2B deal, it's not just one buying journey that you have to shepherd, it's half a dozen.'

The company's breakthrough technology personalizes sales and marketing messaging to each stakeholder in the B2B buying group. For sales leaders, this means increased close rates and shorter sales cycles. For marketing leaders, this translates to higher conversion rates, insights that drive better lead qualification, and a lower cost per lead. Because of this power and value, CONSENSUS is helping more than 200 B2B customers dramatically shorten sales cycles and increase close rates at leading enterprise and midmarket companies such as HP, Microsoft, AdvancedMD and InContact.

'CONSENSUS helps us deliver on our sales strategy every day,' said Don Cash, VP of Global Inside Sales at BMC Software. The company's new brand direction makes sense because overcoming group buying dysfunction is one of our biggest challenges. 'Using CONSENSUS, we're closing deals in just 30 days that used to take six to nine months. The CONSENSUS system alerts us when prospects engage with our automated demo and it shows us what is important to each stakeholder. This allows us to quickly schedule calls and tailor our message to each member of the buying group's unique interests.'

The Series A round of financing brings the total amount CONSENSUS has raised to $7 million, including original investments from Peak Ventures, Select Venture Partners, Albion Financial and Seed Equity, along with initial seed investment from CONSENSUS CEO and Founder Garin Hess.

The capital injection enables CONSENSUS to expand adoption of its buying consensus solution among mid-market and enterprise companies. CONSENSUS will also use the funding for additional product innovation.

Sid Krommenhoek, Managing Partner at Peak Ventures commented, 'We're excited to be increasing our investment in CONSENSUS. This company represents precisely the kind of insight-driven sales acceleration and marketing leverage that growing businesses of all sizes need. Solving the problem of buying dysfunction represents a significant market opportunity.'

He added, 'CONSENSUS brings an easy-to-use solution to sales teams who struggle with multi-stakeholder buying processes and to marketers who feel pressure to deliver more leads that are better qualified.'

CEB's decision to fund CONSENSUS stems from the alignment of the CONSENSUS strategy with the findings in CEB's new book, The Challenger Customer. The book concludes that, to close profitable sales today, it's important to challenge the right buyer, or Mobilizer, within a customer organization -- someone who has the commitment and credibility to facilitate buying consensus among the 5.4 people involved in most of today's B2B buying decisions.

'CONSENSUS is a smart, scalable response to the core challenges facing modern sales and marketing organizations,' said Dan Frawley, head of CEB Ventures at CEB and newly appointed CONSENSUS advisory board member. 'It's essential to equip Mobilizers with insights and a collective learning framework that facilitates consensus among groups of stakeholders with divergent points of view. As the name suggests, CONSENSUS' intelligent demo automation platform uniquely solves this challenge.'

The partnership with CEB Ventures is a 'logical extension of both companies' philosophies and the new CONSENSUS name,' Hess said. 'We agree with CEB that group buying dysfunction is the single biggest problem for B2B sales and marketing organizations and CONSENSUS tackles this challenge in a unique way. We are enabling our customers to achieve significant growth by helping them drive buying consensus for high-quality deals.'

In addition to the new branding, the latest round of funding and Frawley's advisory board appointment, CONSENSUS has been busy of late, having acquired more than 200 customers in less than 24 months and growing their year over year revenues 235 percent in 2015. Late last year, the company also appointed Don Cash and David Bradford, two notable tech industry leaders, to the company's Board of Advisors.

About CONSENSUS

CONSENSUS provides the leading suite of web-based software solutions that accelerates B2B sales by driving consensus among the different stakeholders in the customer buying group. CONSENSUS' namesake software, along with its Demolytics dashboard, helps customers discover and engage the entire buying group by gathering analytics and tracking what they watched, what's important to them, and who they shared it with. This drives consensus and gets to fast, confident purchase decisions. For more information about CONSENSUS, visit http://www.consens.us/.

About Peak Ventures

Peak Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm based in Provo, Utah. Peak Ventures backs talented entrepreneurs going after big markets with exceptional technologies. The thesis is simple: innovation and those who drive it are at the top of the food chain -- not the VC. The team is made up of entrepreneurs experienced in the grind of starting, operating, growing and harvesting exciting companies. For more information, visit www.peakventures.vc.