Fort Mill startup Boardroom Insiders is making waves in the software and information industry.
In May, the Software & Information Industry Association named Boardroom Insiders a CODiE Award finalist in the category of Best Business Information or Data Delivery Solution for its BI PRO software, which launched in 2019.
The startup, co-founded in 2008 by Sharon Gillenwater and Lee Demby, is a business intelligence platform "designed to help sales and marketing teams that target the C-suite close bigger deals, faster."
"We’re in the executive engagement business, helping enterprise technology-level sales and marketing professionals prep for engagement," Demby said.
The company operates two platforms: its core product, BI SIGNATURE, and a newer offering called BI PRO. Demby said the original platform is a database of more than 26,000 profiles on Fortune 1000 executives, from vice president to C-suite level. BI PRO takes it a step further as software that Demby said sits on top the database and delivers valuable insight on groups of executives.
"It's insight that, quite frankly, you can't get anywhere else — things like executive-to-executive mapping and common threads between executives," he said.
The SIIA CODiE Award is a peer recognition for the latest technology for sales and marketing use cases, Demby said. The winner will be announced June 22.
"This is an award that's been given to much bigger names on an annual basis, companies like ZoomInfo Technologies and DiscoverOrg that lean heavily toward AI or machine learning," he said. "We’re a relatively small company bringing something to the table ... It’s significant because we’re a bootstrapped company that’s never taken funding, competing in a world where there are multibillion-dollar companies."
Demby said the recognition that comes with being nominated could be instrumental in Boardroom Insiders' ability to continue its growth.
"There could be capital partners interested in Boardroom Insiders, as well as potential partnerships or acquisitions down the road," he said. "We feel like we’re just getting started with BI PRO ... Our business grew roughly 75% last year because of the software. Executives became a lot more accessible due to Covid, and that’s drawn a strong interest in our total offering."
