Two former Salesforce employees are finding that their time spent at the tech giant provided the perfect foundation on which to build their new startup.
Pimly, a new Chicago-based B2B software-as-a-service provider, announced a $5 million seed round this week as it launches its Product Cloud — the first Salesforce-native product information management platform. Now live, the platform is available in the Salesforce AppExchange.
The funding round, led by High Alpha, with participation from Hyde Park Angels and Handshake Ventures, among others, will be used to help Pimly grow its go-to-market and product teams.
The company is led by Mike Milburn, who left his role as chief customer officer at Salesforce, and former Salesforce architect Mike Dannenfeldt, who founded Etherios and Aleysian.
Milburn and Dannenfeldt were among the first few hundred employees to work in Chicago for San Francisco-based Salesforce. Over the years, the company's footprint in Chicago grew, leading to the launch of a number of other software startups.
Among them is Steelbrick, a Chicago startup that was eventually acquired by Salesforce in 2015, along with other tech startups such as Logik.io that are building off the Salesforce ecosystem.
After spending the last six to nine months in stealth mode, Pimly launched this month and acquired its first customer, Seedbox Solution, last week.
“We’re getting Pimly into the hands of customers, partners, prospects and Salesforce,” Milburn told Chicago Inno.
He hopes to double down on the same principles that he learned at Salesforce with his latest venture.
"It meant a lot to us to work for Salesforce and build that business in Chicago, almost 20 years ago now," Milburn said. "When you think of the Midwest, you have got great brands and great manufacturers."
