UK social selling vendor Artesian Solutions recently incorporated in the United States and opened a Boston office.  The firm has also signed several data partnerships which allow them to expand coverage to 25 million companies and 65 million people.  The firm did not indicate the names of their partners or geographic distribution of the coverage.

The firm has already signed five US customers from the banking, finance, and technology sectors.  To manage US operations, founder Mike Blackadder has relocated to Boston.  The firm has also hired Tom Beriau as their new Vice President of Sales based out of Boston. Tom has over twenty years of enterprise software sales experience.

Artesian Solutions provides mined news and sales triggers from the open web along with a social media view (Twitter and Blogs). Their core offering is the Artesian Social Intelligence SaaS platform which supports company and prospect research on the web, within CRMs (SFDC and MS Dynamics), and via the mobile browser (iPad).

Artesian supports 25,000 users in the UK.  Clients include Adobe, American Express, Barclays, Cisco, Citi, Deloitte, HSBC, KPMG, and Siemens.

“Incorporation sends a clear message to our US customers about our intention to provide support for our award winning service on a global basis,” said CEO Andrew Yates. “Our largely multi-national customers many of whom are headquartered in the US, have been driving demand for Artesian – regarded by them as more than just smart data and insights about customers but a complete sales engagement solution which complements LinkedIn. Think of Artesian providing engagement smarts for companies and markets is the same way LinkedIn does for people insights. Our new office in Boston is just the beginning of our expansion strategy, but it will ensure we are perfectly placed to capitalise on this glaring gap in the market, and provide our customers with the solutions they are demanding, everywhere they operate.”

Boston was selected as it offers “a great base from which to service customers across the whole of the US, as well as a stepping stone towards delivering a truly global offering.”

Boston is also the home of several other sales and marketing intelligence companies including Avention, D&B NetProspex, and Zoominfo.

The firm claimed that it is growing at 100% per annum.  Unfortunately, they did not provide the growth metric (i.e. revenue, customers, users).

Artesian posted an impressive 94% retention rate last year.

Last June, Artesian closed an $8 million Round B. The round was led by previous investors Octopus Investments and Kreos Capital raising total funding to $11.2 million. The funds were dedicated to UK infrastructure growth, international expansion, and ongoing investment in mobile and social apps.

In December, the firm released a calendar-linked mobile app called Ready which helps sales professionals prepare for meetings by providing the latest news, insights, and financials to sales reps. The new service “demonstrates Artesian’s commitment to product innovation and developing cutting-edge mobile applications that help strengthen its customers’ brands and accelerate their sales success.”

The app, available at no charge to Artesian customers on the Apple and Google stores, also supports team collaboration and information sharing. According to Artesian, “Ready allows users attending the same meeting to collaborate and share insight on the go, ensuring that they never miss a thing. Ready delivers tangible commercial outcomes – the pre-sales meeting ritual will never be the same again!”

In the 2016 edition of my Field Guide to Sales Intelligence Vendors, I am planning on expanding coverage to UK products.  This will include profiles of DueDil, Bureau van Dijk (BvD), and Artesian Solutions.  Avention, which has strong offerings for US, UK, and global sales teams, is covered in my 2015 edition.