Former ZoomInfo Executive Secures $15M for Startup Developing AI-Powered Sales Engineers

Until a year ago, Arjun Pillai held the pivotal role of Chief Data Officer at ZoomInfo, a leading B2B database company. However, the seasoned entrepreneur felt a growing restlessness. After founding and selling two startups, one of which was Insent, acquired by ZoomInfo in 2021, he realized the entrepreneurial itch never truly goes away. "Once you start a startup, you always have that bug," Pillai reflected. Following the rise of ChatGPT, he felt inspired to launch his third venture. With over a decade of experience in startup ventures and sales technology, Pillai was confident that generative AI could revolutionize technical sales processes. "I couldn't wait. I had to get out and start the company."

In August 2023, he departed from ZoomInfo to establish DocketAI, a pioneering virtual sales engineer platform. Recently, DocketAI announced a successful $15 million Series A funding round led by Mayfield and Foundation Capital.

During his time at ZoomInfo, Pillai observed that sales engineers—technical sales experts—were often engaged in discussions that didn't require their specialized knowledge. Many account executives sought answers to complex yet routine inquiries. "Bringing a sales engineer to every call is costly, extremely inefficient, and time-consuming," Pillai explained. This insight sparked his idea to create an AI-driven sales engineer solution. DocketAI empowers non-technical sales professionals by providing quick answers to technical questions and assistance in drafting proposals and other essential documents.

Pillai emphasizes that DocketAI doesn’t replace sales engineers but enables them to focus on "more intriguing, complex, and strategic enterprise deals."

The startup’s AI technology assimilates and indexes data from over 100 applications utilized by its clients. Pillai clarified that DocketAI's AI isn’t trained on enterprise data; it functions as a search engine for structured and unstructured workplace data, similar to tools like Glean and Atlassian’s Rovo. However, DocketAI sets itself apart by learning from the behaviors of top-performing sales professionals. "It’s not just about delivering facts to a buyer," Pillai noted. "Docket learns from leading sellers and is capable of scaling best practices company-wide."

Pillai asserts that organizations leveraging DocketAI experience enhanced productivity and higher win rates. The company has been actively marketing its solution since early this year and is onboard various new enterprise-level clients each month. "Our smallest customer has 15 seats, and our largest client boasts 10,000 seats," Pillai shared, proudly noting that ZoomInfo and Demandbase are among their clientele.