by Malli Kugelsky
Ariel Avitan, co-founder of Percepto Robotics https://percepto.co/. Percepto produces drones and other machines for big manufacturing sites.
Ariel has a successful business background and has developed an impressive understanding of B2B selling strategies.
Tell us about Percepto and the value it brings to the manufacturer world:
We started Percepto as a machine vision company. The value of what we do is that we enable manufacturing companies the ability to automate equipment inspections through the use of AI intelligence. This eliminates the time-consuming and dangerous practice of human inspections. The technology is growing in demand we’re growing fast because of it.
What are the difficulties in a deep tech R&D assembly line, and how easy is it for Percepto to continuously improve and develop?
When you’re building a startup, you need to think twice about the value that you provide if you decide to do hardware, because hardware takes a lot of time to change and create something new. It’s even harder in our market because we work with heavy sites that move slow. You need to have very good management and mid management teams to allow the company to run smoothly.
How does Percepto maintain their capabilities within so many markets?
It’s all about adaptation. When we first started, we knew that we were going to face a lot of difficulties trying to adapt to other markets and that’s why we developed our product in a different way that allows us to more easily adapt to many diverse markets.
What is, in your opinion, the best B2B marketing method?
It’s heavy B2B. It’s all about getting to know the shareholders of the company which is the easy part, the hard part is to actually influence them. We first find a potential client, then we provide them with commitment and care. We demonstrate to the client that they are valued. The client is our number one.
How do you influence the decision-makers of the company and suit their needs?
It's all about inbound and outbound. We make sure that we are appealing and professional on LinkedIn. We want people to look at Percepto and see a well-put together company, offering a service that they feel they need, making it easier to come to the decision-maker and make a sale with our outbound team.
Let’s talk a bit about fundraising. What are the crucial steps to follow when you raise money for a deep tech company?
We raised 71 million. As long as you grow, you need to bring up more results to prove that you’re legit.
Most entrepreneurs forget that they need to interview the investor as well because if not, you’ll face so many difficulties and it could cost you your company.