The French scale-up lemlist announces the acquisition of Claapa young company specializing in conversational intelligence. A transaction to eight digitsaccording to the press release, entirely financed with equity, which marks the birth of a new generation of commercial engagement: Smartboundan approach based on purchasing signals and intended to replace the so-called mass canvassing “spray & pray”.
The ambition to build a European alternative to the American giants
By joining forces, Guillaume Moubeche And Charles Tenot (lemlist) with Pierre Touzeau And Robin Bonduelle (Claap) aim to create a European champion capable of competing with American players such as Gong, ZoomInfo Or Outreach.
The company, founded in 2018, now claims $35 million in ARR (approximately 30 million euros), an annual growth of +60%And 20,000 corporate clients distributed in 85 countries.
Smartbound, a new grammar of business development
In a context where cold response rates are collapsing, Smartbound offers a breakthrough: orchestrating prospecting no longer based on volumes but on concrete signalsinternal and external.
- External signals : fundraising, recruitment, appointments, technological changes.
- Internal signals : site visits, downloads, past interactions, sales conversations.
These signals are captured, prioritized and activated by AI in a multi-channel manner (email, telephone, LinkedIn, WhatsApp), triggering a relevant contact at the right time.
“With Smartbound, we put an end to the noise: relevance and timing produce real results. It is not a slogan, but an operational standard” declares Charles TenotCEO of lemlist.
When conversation becomes a signal
Claap, founded in 2021, has developed conversational AI technology capable of capture and structure each exchange (calls, videos, emails) into usable data: objections, deadlines, stakeholders, priorities.
“Every sales conversation contains gold. By joining lemlist, we are ensuring that this intelligence does not fall asleep in the CRM” underlines Robin BonduelleCEO of Claap.
This integration enables automatic actions to be triggered based on the actual content of sales discussions, improving the accuracy and responsiveness of teams.
Three concrete use cases
- Reviving a lost account : Smartbound detects an unblocked budget signal and offers a contextualized reminder.
- After a product launch : it identifies the prospects affected by a new functionality.
- Activating a Warm Account : it aggregates the signals from price page visits and offers a tailor-made approach.
The first results observed among early users show a doubling of response ratea 25% reduction in sales cyclesand until +40% pipeline generated.
A market in rapid change
The global market for Sales Engagement Platformsestimated at 9 billion dollars in 2024should reach 30 billion in 2033. That of the Conversational Intelligence will pass from 11 to 41 billion dollars by 2030. Smartbound primarily targets VSEs, SMEs and ETIsor 90% of companies with sales teams of fewer than 150 people.
This approach responds to an economic reality to face a customer acquisition cost which has tripled in ten years, while email deliverability decreases and technical rules strengthen (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). Signal-guided automation therefore becomes a key lever for commercial performance.
A self-financed operation, rare in European tech
The acquisition of Claap was completed without recourse to external capitalconfirming the financial solidity of lemlist. The amount, estimated at eight figureswas not specified and the historical investors of Claap, Headline And LocalGlobesell their holdings.
The Claap teams and product are integrated within lemlist with a common AI roadmap. A plan 30/60/90 days drives the unification of data models, the strengthening of CRM connectors and the automatic enrichment of opportunities.
On a regulatory level, an audit of flows and practices of GDPR governance accompanies the operation.
