Our relationship with Guillaume Jacquet goes back a long time, years before his journey as an entrepreneur. As part of the team at Teralys Capital, Guillaume was a valued partner and LP of Inovia. Over the years, he has also played multiple roles across our ecosystem as a CEO, executive, advisor, and board member. When Guillaume teamed up with his brother Fred Jacquet, Sébastien Rothlisberger, and JD St-Martin to launch Chronogolf, their inaugural venture, we had the privilege of being part of their journey. The company was successfully acquired by Lightspeed (TSX:LSPD) in 20191.
While spending a few years as executives at Lightspeed, Guillaume and Sébastien witnessed firsthand the unique challenges startups face beyond achieving product-market fit. Now, the duo has reunited to tackle a bold new mission: leveraging AI to revolutionize RevOps and improve the success rates of startups and scale-ups.
Today, we are thrilled to announce that we are backing this incredible team again and leading Vasco’s US$8M seed financing round, with the participation of FRAMEWORK Venture Partners, BY Venture Partners, and a network of business angels. Backing Guillaume and Sébastien reflects our confidence in their proven entrepreneurial expertise and deep understanding of the pain points startups face at various stages of growth.
Finding Go-to-Market Fit
Vasco was born from a powerful belief that growth can be systematically engineered once product-market fit is achieved. However, startups and scale-ups often lack the tools to implement, monitor, and sustain high-velocity sales engines.
For startups, challenges typically include knowing where to begin, creating a GTM plan, defining success metrics, and integrating actionable data. Meanwhile, scale-ups face more complex hurdles, particularly with poor data quality. Existing systems run analyses without verifying the integrity of the underlying data, making it difficult to make informed and reliable decisions. This gap leads to inconsistent growth predictability, limited accountability within revenue funnels, and several other issues.
Guillaume often says, “It is commonly known that 90% of startups fail, but it doesn’t have to be this way”. In today’s macroeconomic environment, where the “growth-at-all-costs” model has been replaced by disciplined execution and measurable outcomes, building a resilient revenue engine has never been more critical, and this is where Vasco comes in. Their end-to-end Revenue Operations (RevOps) platform is designed to help startups and scale-ups architect, achieve, and sustain high-velocity growth.
By serving as a single source of truth, Vasco enables businesses to understand their dynamics in real time and mitigate risks associated with their GTM strategies. Additionally, the company has already established itself as a Certified Partner of Winning by Design, Pavilion, and RevGenius – communities dedicated to advancing Revenue Architecture and recognized for their expertise.
The Rise of RevOps
RevOps is quickly emerging as a transformative market category, similar to how DevOps revolutionized engineering in the 2010s. In 2023, the ratio of revenue professionals to RevOps specialists has reached 10:12, underscoring the growing demand for streamlined revenue processes. Despite a challenging job market, there are over 14,000 open RevOps roles in the U.S. alone3 – a clear signal that organizations prioritize GTM efficiency.
However, legacy systems and FP&A point solutions fall short of delivering the science-based, integrated approach that Vasco offers. Vasco’s platform bridges this gap by enabling seamless collaboration across revenue-driving teams like Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success while also connecting to CRM, ERP, HRIS, payment systems, and customer support systems. These connections are further enhanced by an Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) layer, ensuring data consistency and accuracy. With Vasco, startups and scale-ups are empowered to meet their revenue targets with confidence and precision.
We are proud to partner with Guillaume and Sébastien once again as they redefine how companies approach revenue operations. With their proven track record, relevant expertise, and dedication to solving this critical problem, we are confident Vasco will achieve its ambitious vision and significantly improve the success rate of startups.