Mobile-First Sales Support Platform Showpad Acquires Storydesk’s Assets

Off the back of $8.5 million in new funding, Belgium and San Francisco-based startup Showpad, which provides mobile-first software to help support sales teams, has acquired some of the assets of New York-based Storydesk.

Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, in what otherwise is a customer-base acquisition only and will see Storydesk’s 70-strong customers transitioned over to Showpad’s platform.

It’s my understanding that none of Storydesk’s employees, management or founders will join Showpad, and that the former was planning to terminate its service at the end of year anyway. In other words, we can probably chalk this up as a fire sale.

“We are thrilled to welcome Storydesk customers to Showpad” said Pieterjan Bouten, CEO of Showpad, in a statement. “While the two platforms are a bit different, both Showpad and Storydesk have always shared a passion to help marketing and sales teams improve their performance.”

To that end, Showpad’s raison d’être is to help sales teams stay up-to-date with the information and materials they need to close more sales. It does this via mobile, tablet and web apps, underpinned by its cloud platform for hosting sales content uploaded by marketing and other sales support staff.

Similarly, Storydesk’s iPad app, CatalogApp, let businesses bring their sales catalogs to the tablet computer.

In addition to today’s asset acquisition, Showpad is announcing a number of key hires, and its plans to bolster its U.S. office in downtown San Francisco, tripling headcount in 2015 from its current 20 employees.

Stephen Green, VP of North America Sales, joins Showpad from Adobe-owned Echosign; Antoine Valentone, VP of Customer Success, joins Showpad from Egnyte; Mac McConnell, VP of Marketing, joins Showpad from Bonitasoft; and Krishan Gupta, VP of Product Management, joins Showpad from Siemens-owned eMeter.

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