established in the Netherlands Instruction has a product that makes it easier for companies to test how new software would work within their organization. After making its way to growth, it has now raised €15 million in a Series A round led entirely by Blossom Capital.
It is much easier to sell a software product to a company if they can see live how it will work within the organization. So some startups have popped up where they run their SaaS product in a kind of Sandbox, so the client company can see how it could work, without having to fully deploy it. Instead of fooling buyers as to why they should buy their products, the platform puts buyers in the driver’s seat to experience a product hands-on. This means that the customer gets a working demo of the product, without having to spend a lot of time and resources on it, or maybe even signing a contract. That’s a much more powerful way to sell a product compared to a theoretical “demo” that might look and sound good, but could turn into a total disaster in practice. Some examples of companies that offer products in this area are Cloudshare, Skillshare and ReadyTech.
Founded in 2018, Instruqt says it’s used by companies like RedHat, MongoDB, Datadog, and HashiCorp. They use it to build so-called “self-service demos” and free trial drives for prospects.
The company is led by CEO Coert Baart alongside co-founder and CTO Adé Moetar. Baart previously co-founded XebiaLabs, which was sold to TPG Capital in 2020 for an undisclosed sum.
Coert Baart, CEO of Instruqt, said in a statement, “Because we’ve been bootstrapped since day one, it always took a VC that really understood our vision to raise capital from the outside.”
“Instruqt hits the spot for both buyers and sellers when it comes to addressing the key challenges faced by businesses of all sizes and industries,” added Ophelia Brown, Founder and Managing Partner at Blossom Capital.
