SalesFUSION has raised $1 million in Series A-1 venture capital to accelerate adoption of its next-generation cloud marketing automation software, becoming the latest Atlanta success story to attract the attention of high-tech investment firm Hallett Capital.

Although profitable for some time, SalesFUSION opted for outside funding to grow even faster as enterprise demand for B2B marketing automation software has increased. Hallett Capital, which led first-round investments in Atlanta-born tech companies Northridge Systems, Cloud Sherpas and BetterCloud, contributed the full amount of the funding and managing director Jon Hallett will join SalesFUSION's board as chairman.

SalesFUSION, with several hundred midsize and large enterprise clients such as brand-names Hitachi, Coverall, Avanade and Green Giant, has differentiated itself in the white-hot cloud marketing automation market by offering the industry's deepest integrations to CRM systems from Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Sage Software, SugarCRM, SalesLogix, NetSuite and Salesforce.com. SalesFUSION has also separated itself from the competition with a commitment to customer service: 99% of all integrated SalesFUSION clients have renewed annually since 2009, helping the company double revenue each of the past three years.

"SalesFUSION combines three key elements of technology start-up success: great team, growing macro market trend, and differentiated intellectual property that customers love," said Hallett. "I was initially drawn to SalesFUSION because its metrics surrounding customer retention are almost unheard of in the cloud software marketplace. In this kind of market, with a number of strong competitors, SalesFUSION has been able to successfully differentiate itself through its client service and unique feature set. SalesFUSION is the 'next big thing' in marketing automation due to a compelling value proposition delivered to its customers."

"Our philosophy is that sales departments are the ultimate consumer of marketing data and to be successful in this space you have to put the marketing intelligence we gather into the hands of sales reps in a meaningful way," said Chad Ruff, founder and CEO at SalesFUSION. "Plenty of marketing automation vendors can manage a bulk email campaign, but by combining web analytics, lead scoring, social profiles, dialog responses and key CRM data, we are able to strip out the noise and present the most relevant and useful information to sales reps -- directly inside the CRM system. This is absolutely unique in the industry."

SalesFUSION, which expects to raise additional capital in late 2013 to fund international expansion and possible acquisitions, will use the Series A-1 round to grow its product portfolio and expand its sales and services capabilities. Already, the company has developed a strong channel sales business. CRM system integrators can sign up with SalesFUSION and sell a pre-integrated marketing package to existing and new clients. The Series A-1 capital will allow SalesFUSION to attract new channel partners and expand relationships with existing firms.

"Having a background in large software channels, I felt we needed to target large CRM resellers," said Ruff. "Ninety percent of the time, companies are buying SalesFUSION because it integrates so well with their installed CRM. Who better to identify companies who are looking to purchase marketing automation than their CRM partner? We enable our reseller partners to share in the monthly revenue stream, but more important for the partner, it opens up a whole new line of services revenue. We believe we've filled that gap and the infusion of capital will ensure we can grow our lines of business in North America and abroad."

About SalesFUSION
SalesFUSION 360™ provides software that accelerates revenue by connecting sales and marketing with prospects at the moment they are ready to buy. This is made possible through the SalesFUSION 360 suite, which complements CRM applications by adding an on-demand enterprise lead management service. SalesFUSION 360 increases lead quantity, lead quality, and revenue conversion rates by integrating and automating the lead management process. SalesFUSION integrates marketing automation software natively with more CRM vendors than any other marketing software package available today. Visit our site: www.salesfusion.com.