We’ve raised $4M from Stage 2 Capital To Help Create a New Category of In-Work Learning to Solve the GTM Skills Crisis!

After 20 short months of insanely hard work, and almost 1000% ARR revenue growth over the last 12 months, we are thrilled to announce we have raised $4M from Stage 2 Capital, and I’m immensely proud to say, Mark Roberge, one of the most respected revenue leaders in our industry is joining the board.

I’m a scale fast junkie, but even I have been blown away with how fast we are growing, with companies like Hubspot, Gong, Klaviyo, and Outreach trusting SIA to upskill their teams as we’ve gone from under 30 customers to fast approaching 200 in the last 12 months.

What makes this investment so incredible is the mission fit between Stage 2 Capital and Sales Impact Academy. Stage 2 is cofounded by Mark Roberge and Jay Po (former Bessemer Ventures), based on the premise that many early-stage ventures struggle to scale revenue predictably and an investment partner exclusively specialized in this capability can be a high value add to the overall ecosystem. 

What makes the firm especially unique is that all 250 of the people who have invested (LPs) are the world’s most elite GTM leaders.

GET THE DECK WE USED TO RAISE $4M FROM STAGE 2

Sales Impact Academy’s Mission

Put simply, we have a major supply and demand crisis for GTM talent, with a very poor supply of talent, coupled with extreme demand for that limited talent pool.  

Those of you who are trying to hire SDRs, salespeople, CSMs, sales engineers, B2B marketers, and anyone in a revenue operations role will be feeling this pain. 

Our hypothesis is that the only way to solve the chronic global talent crisis we are in is through continuous, high-quality education. 

Indeed the winners, the winning companies, will be the ones who quickly understand this and invest significantly in the upskilling of their teams. 

Now the task is so big, we don’t think we can do it alone, but we can certainly lead the way and set the highest of standards.   

And what does the world-state look like if we upskill the GTM profession at scale?

  • Well to start with, consistent world class skills across every GTM organization   
  • Scalable and predictable revenue becomes the norm, retention is strong, and ICs and leaders no longer live in fear of missing targets  
  • People acquire skills before moving into more senior roles and we see the end of sink or swim career progression  
  • Sales finally becomes the respected profession it always
    should have been, with people enjoying, long and happy careers 
  • And finally, company failure becomes the exception not the
    rule and we would even start to see a macro impact on the world

That's why we built Sales Impact Academy, to make that future state reality as quickly as we possibly can. 

Our mission is to up-skill every member of the global B2B sales and go-to-market community so we have been thinking about scale from day one.

By delivering high-quality education to huge live audiences, with learning support materials to guide managers and individuals during post-class implementation of best practice, Sales Impact Academy will have an immediate, measurable impact on the B2B landscape.

Sales Impact Academy’s Business Model

  • Bring together the world’s best GTM experts, many of whom are in roles today so at the cutting edge of what’s happening in our fast-paced industry
  • Develop a full curriculum of courses we teach live, just two hours of class time a week per course, so we don’t interfere but actually, augment the working week and have an immediate impact on pipeline creation, conversion, and retention   
  • Exams for every course and learners obtain certification which we hope will become the global standard for employers trying to understand the core underlying skills of potential candidates, something the industry has never had   
  • And finally we are a subscription service, an ever present, continuous skills development solution which has become a critical part of our customers overall GTM stack, as mission critical as the CRM. It’s perfect for both onboarding new hires and supporting the growth and development of teams and individuals across the entire revenue function

Sales Impact Academy Curriculum

Our courses are split across five Schools and our sixth School – Revenue Operations – is being developed. 

We have 30 courses, spanning over 250 hours of carefully designed, digital-first learning, with 15 more courses currently in development.

We believe a complete educational program for every aspect of GTM will be many thousands of hours of learning – so we have a lot of work to do!  

When you understand the sheer volume of learning required to be an expert in GTM, it makes the random way we’ve all been learning in our industry even more shocking!

All our courses involve community-based learning so in any course you’ll be joined by peers from other companies. 

We really encourage networking, sharing experiences, and best practices during classes. Our courses are delivered live, online, and split into bite-sized, one-hour classes, twice a week.

We’ve found that live instruction is great for attendance as classes are scheduled into learners’ calendars, and one of the biggest benefits is that it also allows for global teams to learn together at the same time and pace. 

We really advocate for teams to get together after class or at the end of each week to discuss their learnings and start implementing them in their day-to-day.

Proof Points

And who knew – education works!

One customer who put all their SDRs through our prospecting school and saw a whopping 36% increase in demos booked.

Another customer, Cognism a post series C company put all their AEs through our flagship AE course “Managing The Complete Sales Cycle” and saw conversion go from 20% to 30%.

The downstream impact on revenue by increasing conversion by 50% shouldn’t be lost on anyone.  

And finally, global client Tribe, did a cost analysis on building an internal learning and development function compared to an SIA subscription and we came out 75% less expensive. 

What’s Next?

I only say this partially with tongue in cheek – the success of this new industrial revolution is at stake! 

So many of the innovations that will solve our greatest world problems will not succeed unless we ensure the GTM side of the house is in rude health.

So as you can see, Sales Impact Academy is not just a learning company.  This is a new and critically important category of in-work learning for GTM teams.

Every single one of us at Sales Impact Academy feels a deep sense of responsibility to ensure we help as many people as we possibly can to rapidly upskill and thrive in their roles, and in turn, create thriving, important, and long-lasting companies.

GET THE DECK WE USED TO RAISE $4M FROM STAGE 2