Israeli intelligence vets raise $20M to track developer buying signals

The developers Hate (Bad) MarketingBut they still need a way to find useful tools and services That’s why you’ll find forums and sites like Hacker News, Reddit, and Stack Overflow dominated by developers discussing their dev kits and why some tools are better than others.

That buying intent signals Israeli startups onfire Software vendors want to help capture. The company monitors public forums to see what tools devs are discussing and then uses AI to identify which companies those commenters work with and who are the decision makers there. The platform also layers in budget cycle data, and aggregates it to help B2B sales teams time and contextualize their outreach.

OnFire is now exiting the hush with $20 million in funding, TechCrunch has learned exclusively. This includes a new $14 million Series A co-led by Israeli VC firm, Grove Ventures and TLV Partners. IN Ventures, the venture arm of Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation, also participated, as did LeumiTech77A special fund marking Israel’s 77th anniversary

Like many other Israeli founders and VCs, OnFire CEO Tal Peretz, CTO Shahar Shabit and CPO Nitzan Hada are Israel Defense Forces alumni. Unit 8200The NSA is an intelligence unit similar to that of both won the award and sparked controversy for his allegations Mass surveillance of civilians Using advanced AI and data tools.

After joining the private tech sector, the trio (pictured above, left to right: Hada, Peretz and Shavit) saw an opportunity to use their intelligence skills in SaaS. The startup estimates it has driven “more than $50 million in closed deals” for its clients since its beta launch 12 months ago, and says its early users include ActiveFence, Aiven, Cyera, Port and Spectro Cloud, as well as other companies that sell data, cybersecurity. FinOps and monitoring solutions for technical buyers.

Still, one can’t ignore the elephant in the room: Given the founders’ intelligence backgrounds, OnFire’s trawling of public data to identify commenters’ employers is sure to raise eyebrows. But Levkowitz frames the startup’s results as a win-win. “Our customers are happy, and by the way, even their prospects are happy, because people pitch them with the right thing at the right time,” he said.

The company hopes its vertical, data-centric focus will give it an edge over competitors. While other AI-enabled tools promise to boost enterprise sales, Peretz says personalized outreach can’t be done without something to pull it off. “What differentiates us is that we started as a data-first company, and then we added AI engines on top of that,” he said.

According to Grove managing partner Lotan Levkowitz, Onfire is filling a gap that the venture firm identified before meeting the founders: software infrastructure companies not using AI in their go-to-market (GTM) strategy. “The missing piece there was the data,” he said.

OnFire comes at a time when companies are facing profitability challenges alone Product led growth Enterprise is for sale. Some in the industry felt that a new data layer was now necessary to support GTM teams, and Grove was already there To conclude that When it was connected to OnFire, Levkowitz said. He helped Onfire connect with companies his team met while developing that thesis

“Before we wrote a single line of code, we interviewed about 275 revenue leaders in the IT space,” Peretz told TechCrunch. The co-founders found that most companies were still deriving most of their revenue from direct sales efforts, but adopting AI tools was changing things.

They learned that buyers can benefit from “doing more with less” using AI-based contextual tools. But CISOs, CTOs and engineering teams, traditionally considered “hard buyers,” now need to filter out more noise than ever before thanks to AI tools that enable massive outreach, and context can help salespeople here.

Peretz emphasized that OnFire’s solution is also about mapping the signal to the customer’s context — for example, selling a data solution to a large organization would require a different approach than a cybersecurity solution. That’s particularly interesting, Levkovits says, because it means “with every customer OnFire has, the data set is actually getting better.”

That compounding data layer is what Onfire considers its moat to defend against CRM incumbents like Salesforce and HubSpot. “This vertical approach enables them to offer a very unique value proposition to these go-to-market teams of software infrastructure companies,” said Levkowitz.

Peretz said the startup plans to use its new funding to hire in AI, R&D and sales. Its core AI system is built in Israel, where 60% of the team is based, but the “go-to-market machine” is based in New York, as the startup expects the US to be one of its main markets.