Indian Startup Revvsales Aims To Become The Canva For Document Collaboration

The coronavirus pandemic has shattered the lives of many and has forced people around the world to give up their daily routine and limit themselves to their homes. Such a drastic change in behavior had an impact on businesses everywhere, including in India. Employees of IT giants, startups, and corporates were also asked to work from home. Though, this impact is not just limited to their balance sheets but also in their day-to-day operations. 

During these days nothing in businesses is more important than automation in most processes. Working outside the office is also about finding new ways to connect with teammates, reviewing targets, and approaching consumers and customers more responsibly.

When working with a remote workforce something simple such as creating a document for collaboration and processing can be fraught with complications. Revvsales, Bengaluru based company founded in 2018, is targeting this basic need for companies and empowers them in creating and managing documents such as proposals, invoices, quotes, contracts, and agreements of various kinds, resignation letters, recommendation letters and more. The all-in-one document management system lets businesses take full control of document templates, approval flows, workflows, and data from internal systems. Revvsales is looking to bring an alternative to Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Revvsales have added smarts to their system which are not there in Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Besides Revvsales, other notable documents and template management applications include eFileCabinet, Hightail, PaperTracer, DocuWare, Templafy, M-Files, MasterControl, etc. The majority of these target enterprise clients and bigger customers. Presently, Revvsales focuses on bringing enterprise-grade, data management tools to individuals, teams, freelancers, and small and medium businesses (SMBs).

Co-founder and CEO Rishi Kulkarni told that when it comes to document tools, the biggest mind share continues to be Microsoft Word and Google Docs, however, these are generic and may not integrate with communication apps, enterprise email and cloud storage solutions or platforms such as Workato, Hubspot or Salesforce. To infuse documents with logic, data, and application program interface (APIs) some kind of consultant or additional resource is still needed.

“That is where most of these applications fall short. We are not up against one competition, we are up against a suit of application as we bring all of that under one roof,” added Sameer Goel, co-founder, and COO.

 “This is the target segment that needs most help when it comes to tools, software, and technology. Large corporates have enough resources to make it through this period,” added Kulkarni.

Backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Matrix Partners, Revvsales has customers in the US, Singapore, UK, South Africa, India, and Australia among other markets. The list includes Sprout Solutions, Randstad, Hypertec, Moglix, Hexagon, Miracle Software Systems among others. With 1.2 Mn in funding raised from investors, the current focus is on revenue generation. Revvsales charges customers on a per-user basis at a rate of $15 per user per month for SMBs. The service is free for teams with less than ten members.

Revvsales emerged from stealth mode in September 2019 and has been aggressively pitching its products to SMBs, enterprises, and founders since then at various industry events, but this had to change with Covid-19. “We had booked a booth at SaaStr event which was supposed to be held in March, but then Covid-19 happened and everything got canceled,” Kulkarni revealed.

By mid-March, the entire team had moved to work from home and by April, things slowly began to normalize, when the company started seeing gradual growth as most companies started to work remotely. “A lot of them were looking for product-first, easy to use collaborative tools. This was automatically followed by virtual product demos via email, video, and audio calls,” shared Goel.

Since January, it has seen 1500 businesses using its platform. The freemium model offered by Revvsales has been a major trigger behind this growth. “Honestly, we do not know, if Covid-19 or the need for the enterprise to have a simplified document management system triggered this growth,” said Kulkarni.

As per the Wall Street Journal report, nearly 28% of job searches are now for remote or work from home, and the searches went up to 40%. Revvsales, which essentially addresses remote working challenges, is looking to automate most of the features across its document management system through artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms, and predictive analytics.

Giving the example of Canva and Grammarly for what it has done for design and writing, Goel said that Revvsales aims to be that player in the document management space. He said the idea is to use documents as a vehicle to transfer data from one system to another and simplify the experience of not having to use multiple applications and tools in the process. “Making things simple is complex,” said Kulkarni.

Goyal concluded by saying that at the end of the day, users don’t care what technology you have used to get the product right, what they care is the convenience factor, and how easy, safe or simple your product is to use.