Wheelings & Dealings: Survey Outfit Wootric Raises $2.6M

QUESTION: What do bagels, the law, Salesforce, and voice of the customer have in common? 

ANSWER: They have all been pursuits of Deepa Subramanian, one of the founders of Wootric, which today announced an oversubscribed Series A funding round that brought in $2.6 million.

The round was led by Cloud Apps Capital Partners, whose portfolio also includes Dasheroo, goformz, Hootsuite, insightly, ServiceMax, and propel. CSC Upshot, a $400 million fund out of China dedicated primarily to U.S. startups, also participated in the round.

Wootric describes itself as a startup that helps companies win customers for life. It’s a tool that enables organizations to run simple surveys inside Android and iOS that provide Net Promoter Scores and yield 40 to 60 percent response rates. But, Subramanian says, Wootric takes things a step further and also plugs that information into workflows to create a “virtuous closed loop”.

For example, SaaS-based HR feedback tool provider 15Five uses Wootric to sample its user base, understand which of its users are the most loyal, and employs that information so it can leverage its “loyalists” to create social media buzz, explains Subramanian. (Citrix and Time Inc. are also among Wootric’s more than 100 customers.)

Many existing voice of the customer/survey solutions out there today from companies such as Medallia and SurveyMonkey just do part of what Wootric delivers, says Subramanian. Providing such companies with a turnkey solution that spans data collection and workforce management can affect real change, she adds, because it unifies teams around data in an automated way. Wootric also has integrations with solutions from Intercom, Salesforce, Slack, and Zendesk, and offers an API and web hooks to work with other tools.

Speaking of Salesforce, Subramanian got her start at the company. In fact, she says she was the first female engineer at Salesforce, a company at which she worked from 2003 to 2006. Following that, she attended law school and then practiced as an attorney. She then segued into running San Francisco-based bagel company Schmendricks until, Subramanian says, a gluten allergy prompted her to move in a new direction and launch Wootric with partner Jessica Pfeifer.