Startup Of The Week: Genius.com Lands A Blue Chip AccountStartup Of The Week: Genius.com Lands A Blue Chip Account

Some apps get rolled out by IT departments; others are pulled in by employees. Genius.com's marketing application is an example of the latter. Used by salespeople for e-mail campaigns, SalesGenius signals when a message gets opened or a Web site visited. The company has just landed $19 million in funding and its biggest corporate account. --John Foley GENUIS.COM HEADQUARTERS: San Mateo, Calif.

PRODUCT: SalesGenius, an application for e-mail sales campaigns

INVESTORS: David Thompson, co-founder and CEO; Robert Seidl, co-founder and CTO

FUNDING: Accel Partners, Emergence Capital Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Walden International

CUSTOMERS: BT Business, FranklinCovey, LinkedIn

ADOPTION CYCLE

Sales pros can sign up directly for SalesGenius for $49 per month. As word spreads, adoption grows. CEO Thompson calls it a "land and expand" strategy. The complementary Genius Team lets sales managers distribute leads among sales reps. IT departments may vet Genius' software as a service for privacy and security, but no heaving lifting is required. HOW IT WORKS Salespeople create an e-mail using SalesGenius or Microsoft Outlook that includes a link back to the company's Web site. A "tracker" function signals when the message gets opened and when the recipient visits the Web site and shows which pages are viewed. Genius Interactive lets users create a Web site overlay--a greeting or special offer, for example--that appears when prospects come to the Web site; the site itself doesn't change. A reporting capability shows up-to-the-minute results of e-mail campaigns. MOMENTUM Genius just landed $19 million in third-round funding, bringing total VC investment to $34 million. Its customer base exceeds 30,000 named users. About 30% of business comes via Salesforce.com. BLUE CHIP ACCOUNT Genius last week announced that BT Business, the business retail unit of communications services giant BT, has put SalesGenius into the hands of its office-based account team. These sales reps sell dozens of products--DSL and voice services, for example--to up to 350 accounts each. BT expects SalesGenius to help it with account prioritization and to deliver "instantly responsive" customer service. BT Business becomes the largest of Genius' approximately 425 business accounts. TIMELINE