XANT Announces Plans to Open Offices in Ireland and Create More Than 120 Jobs

• Sales acceleration company completes $50M USD growth equity round by Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, Microsoft, Polaris Partners & QuestMark Partners
• Signs partnership with Insight Centre for Data Analytics to help advance data science and machine learning industry in Ireland

  Dublin, Ireland – January 18, 2017 – Today XANT, the industry’s leading predictive sales acceleration platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI), announced expansion into Ireland, showing its commitment to better serve InsideSales customers across its Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region and around the world. The technology company also announced a new growth equity round of investment that included the participation of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, and signed a new partnership with Ireland’s Insight Centre for Data Analytics.   The Insight Centre for Data Analytics is a joint initiative between researchers at Dublin City University, NUI Galway, University College Cork, University College Dublin and other partner institutions. The goal for InsideSales’ partnership with Insight Centre is to help advance data science and machine learning as an emerging highly skilled industry in Ireland. A formal internship programme will be established, with a goal of advancing the careers of top data science and engineering interns annually from within the Irish University system.   InsideSales is also looking to grow its presence in Ireland and is evaluating locations in which, based on current plans, the company could hire more than 120 professionals for its product development and engineering, sales and sales operations, and back office teams over the next three years. The company has a long-term goal to create a worldwide XANT centre of excellence for AI and machine learning in Ireland.   “The expansion of our operations in Ireland signals the commitment we’re making both to Ireland and to expanding support for our growing international customer base. Building a research and development hub in the region will allow us to capitalise on new pools of talent,” said Martin Moran, Managing Director, International, XANT. “This will be helped by the new partnership with the Insight Centre for Data Analytics. We foresee a productive partnership between both Insight Centre’s researchers and our own, tackling both data-driven problems and immediate commercial opportunities.”   XANT also announced today the close of a $50 million growth equity round, led by returning investor Polaris Partners with support from Microsoft, also a returning investor. New investors include QuestMark Partners and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. Existing venture investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Hummer Winblad, U.S. Venture Partners, Epic Ventures, and Zetta Venture partners also participated. The round brings the company’s total venture capital funding to over $250 million.   The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), managed and controlled by the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), is a sovereign development fund with a statutory mandate to invest on a commercial basis in a manner designed to support economic activity and employment in Ireland.   “As an early leader offering AI-fueled tools in the workplace, we’re excited to use this new investment to bring InsideSales’ technology to new geographies, new platforms and to foster smart growth for companies of all sizes,” said Dave Elkington, CEO, XANT. “Over the past year we’ve seen the buzz around AI reach a fever pitch. No other business based in Ireland has a focus on machine learning and data science like XANT does. We’re not only looking to hire some of Ireland’s best and brightest technology graduates, but also to help build a new, highly skilled industry in the region.”   “We are pleased to welcome InsideSales into Ireland’s flourishing technology community,” said Eugene O’Callaghan, Director of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. “This investment is well aligned with the ISIF’s mandate with the key benefits to the Irish economy being the targeted creation of more than 120 high-quality jobs over the next three years in addition to the collaboration between InsideSales and the Insight Centre in Ireland fostering growth of this important specialist sector.”   About XANT XANT offers the industry’s leading sales acceleration platform built on Neuralytics, a predictive and prescriptive self-learning engine that drives revenue growth by delivering an optimized experience for both salesperson and buyer. The platform fuels sales rep performance and provides buyer personalization with breakthrough innovations in predictive sales communications, engagement tracking, forecasting and rep motivation. XANT has received numerous accolades for its technology, including being named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 and Forbes Cloud 100 lists, and earning recognition as one of the fastest growing companies, according to Inc. XANT enterprise customers include ADP, Microsoft and Groupon.   About The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (€8.1 billion at end Sept. 2016) has a statutory mandate to invest on a commercial basis in a manner designed to support economic activity and employment in Ireland. The fund, which is controlled and managed by the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), has made investment commitments to date of €2.4 billion (including investments made by its predecessor, the National Pensions Reserve Fund). For more information about the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and how it invests visit www.isif.ie.   About the Insight Centre for Data Analytics The Insight Centre for Data Analytics is a joint initiative between researchers at Dublin City University, NUI Galway, University College Cork, University College Dublin and other partner institutions. Insight brings together more than 400 researchers from these institutions, with over 40 industry partners, to position Ireland at the heart of global data analytics research. (https://www.insight-centre.org)     Media Contact – Ireland Strategic Investment Fund David Clerkin Gordon MRM ntma@gordonmrm.ie +353 87 830 1779   Media Contact – InsideSales LEWIS InsideSalesUK@teamlewis.com +44 (0)20 7802 2626