
Kickscale raises €2.1M seed to build European alternative in AI-powered sales intelligence race
Kickscale, an AI-powered sales and intelligence platform, has raised a €2.1 million Seed round to scale its business in Europe and later to the Middle East and Asia.
The round was led by aws Gründungsfonds, with participation from altitudeVC, known for its strategic investments in European SME technology solutions, Calm/Storm Ventures, and Carinthian Venture Fond. Notable existing investors continuing their support include the former CEO of Zalando Lounge, Julius Göllner, serial social media entrepreneur Michael Kamleitner, and Bitmovin co-founders Stefan Lederer and Christopher Mueller.
Kickscale provides a revenue intelligence platform that uses AI to capture, analyse, and organise real and virtual sales and customer conversations. By transforming conversation data into actionable insights, it empowers sales teams to forecast more accurately, identify at-risk deals, and replicate winning sales strategies. Unlike dominant US solutions, such as Gong, Kickscale’s technology is built from the ground up to address the needs of European SME businesses including data privacy standards, and multilingual and regional environments.
Since launching in 2024, Kickscale has quickly acquired over 100 B2B clients across the UK, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Japan, including HILL International Group, Haufe Group, KK Company, ApprovalMax and bookingkit. Kickscale’s customers have reported up to a 24% improvement in sales closing rates and an average of 40 hours saved per sales rep on routine and administrative tasks.
The platform aligns sales with marketing and product teams through customer-driven insights, improving both strategy and execution. With automated note-taking, key moment detection, and rep performance tracking, Kickscale helps reduce time spent on manual tasks and enables managers to coach more effectively. In today’s economic climate, Kickscale delivers the efficiency and clarity revenue teams need – backed by technology that works seamlessly even in local markets like Japan.
“Kickscale is designed specifically for European SME and Mid-Market companies with unwavering commitments to data privacy, seamless usability, and sophisticated multilingual capabilities that understand the nuances of European dialects and business cultures," said Gerald Zankl, Kickscale’s CEO & Co-Founder. “For far too long, European businesses have relied on US tech giants for critical sales intelligence tools. Today's political uncertainties make it clear that Europe needs more sovereign technology solutions. We're building an alternative to US-platforms that currently dominate the global market.”
Ingo Drexler, Partner at āltitude and Kickscale investor, said: “We've invested in Kickscale precisely because they offer European businesses the sovereign technology alternative they need. Every day that European SMEs continue to rely on US sales platforms is another day of unnecessary vulnerability to American political whims. The time for digital independence is now and we are proud to be growing together with the excellent Kickscale team."
Hans Christian Heinemeyer, Chief Revenue Officer at bookingkit, said: "We've looked into several US-based platforms, but it felt like they were built for a different business culture and mostly for big enterprises. Their approach simply didn't match how we build and maintain client relationships in the DACH region and in Europe in general. Furthermore, GDPR and legal compliance is a crucial requirement for us."
Hisa Machida, Director Solutions Support, KK Company Japan, said: "Kickscale has proven to be an outstanding solution for our sales team here in Japan. The platform handles Japanese language conversations with impressive accuracy, which is not always the case with global tools. We truly see the value in having a revenue intelligence platform that understands and supports local markets. In short, Kickscale helps our sales and product teams by providing highly productive performance for reviewing sales meetings and their improvements. Especially in today’s challenging economic environment, having this kind of insight into our sales and customer interactions is more important than ever."
For more startup news, check out the other articles on the website, and subscribe to the magazine for free. Listen to The Cereal Entrepreneur podcast for more interviews with entrepreneurs and big-hitters in the startup ecosystem.