Daniel Saks, the Canadian entrepreneur who co-founded software firm AppDirect, has launched his latest venture, Landbase, out of stealth with $12.5 million USD in seed financing.
Landbase is developing an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform that allows companies to automate, unify, and optimize their go-to-market processes. The company, like Saks’ previous venture AppDirect, is headquartered in San Francisco, though its CEO’s Canadian roots run deep.
Daniel Saks remains a member of AppDirect’s board.
AppDirect was founded by Saks and Nicolas Desmarais in 2009. Desmarais is one of Canada’s most influential families across a number of sectors, having backed notable Canadian tech companies like Wealthsimple, Koho, and Borrowell via Power Corporation.
The company provides a platform that helps businesses sell, distribute, and manage cloud-based software and services. It’s an American-headquartered firm, but has offices in Montréal and Calgary. AppDirect has raised over $400 million in venture funding to date, and earlier this year, raised $100 million USD from existing investor Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) to expand its AppDirect Capital program.
In an email, Saks told BetaKit he recently moved on from his executive role at AppDirect to start Landbase, though he remains a member on AppDirect’s board. He moved from the role of co-founder and president in 2022, and since 2023 has been co-founder and board member.
Landbase’s other co-founders include chief product officer Emily Zhang; CTO Raheem Syed; chief data scientist Hua Gao; and chief growth officer Yi Jin.
Landbase’s seed financing round was co-led by A*, 8VC, and First Minute Capital, with participation from Canadian venture firm Inovia Capital, as well as Picus, General Catalyst, and a number of angel investors.
A* is an early-stage venture firm that has notably invested in fellow Canadian-founded tech company Faire, as well as DoorDash and AirBnB. Saks said Paul Desmerais Jr. and the Desmerais family have also backed the business as angel investors.
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“Since co-founding AppDirect in 2009, I’ve been committed to supporting the Canadian tech ecosystem,” Saks told BetaKit. “I’m grateful to continue this commitment with Landbase. I’m proud to have AppDirect investors including the Inovia and Desmarais Family support the Landbase team on our journey.”
The startup has developed GTM-1 Omni, an AI model designed specifically for go-to-market. Saks said the model is targeted to B2B businesses of all sizes, adding that Landbase also provides free business intelligence tools to sales and marketing professionals, agency owners, and researchers. According to a statement by Saks, the model can understand and predict outcomes, as well as execute tasks across the spectrum of go-to-market activities.
In its statement, Saks claimed that customers using GTM-1 Omni have seen a seven-fold increase in conversion rate compared to traditional OpenAI models, and a 70 percent reduction in average time spent per generated lead.
Landbase plans to launch a series of products to automate omni-channel go-to-market including inbound and outbound strategies. Landbase hopes to eventually build a developer ecosystem and agency network to offer third-party partners the opportunity to benefit from GTM-1 Omni.
“We are building a go-to-market experience that prioritizes efficiency and results, not manual effort,” Saks wrote in the statement.
“An experience focused on helping you automate your sales and marketing processes, without the clutter of disconnected tools or the loss of human expertise. An experience where your technology tools work for you, and not the other way around.”
Feature image courtesy of Landbase.
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