Zero raises $10.3 m seed round to challenge Salesforce and HubSpot
PrimaryCompany
Inception FundInvestor
DefiantInvestor
- Greens GroupInvestor
LovableInvestor
SupercellInvestor
LangdockInvestorSilo AIInvestor
Zero, a Finnish AI‑driven CRM startup, closed a $10.3 million seed round on Sept. 15, 2026, led by Primary Venture Partners. The capital will fund the launch of an autonomous revenue‑operations platform that the founders say will upend the traditional Salesforce and HubSpot model.
Zero secured a $10.3 million seed round on Sept. 15, 2026, positioning the Finnish AI‑CRM startup to take on Salesforce and HubSpot. The round was led by New York‑based Primary Venture Partners and included participation from Inception Fund, Defiant, Greens, as well as the founders of Lovable, Supercell, Langdock and Silo AI.
Founded by former Smartly co‑founders Tuomo Riekki and Santtu Koivumäki, Zero builds on a track record that saw Smartly scale to $100 million in ARR across five markets. Earlier backers such as 20VC, PostHog co‑founder James Hawkins, and operator funds tied to executives from Spotify, Wolt, Shopify, Dropbox, Meta and OpenAI have already signaled confidence in the team’s ability to execute in the B2B SaaS space.
Deal Terms
The $10.3 million seed injection is described by the company as one of the largest seed rounds ever raised by a Finnish tech firm. While the post‑money valuation was not disclosed, the breadth of strategic investors—spanning AI specialists and seasoned SaaS operators—suggests a valuation premium typical of early‑stage AI‑first ventures. The capital will primarily fund product engineering, go‑to‑market hires, and the expansion of Zero’s AI agent ecosystem.
Market Positioning
Zero’s platform replaces the conventional CRM stack and the myriad point solutions used for prospecting, customer success and revenue operations. Its AI agents autonomously generate prospect lists, dispatch outbound emails and monitor post‑sale relationships, aiming to reduce manual data entry and enable smaller teams to manage larger customer bases. As Koivumäki put it, “Too much of the job was getting people to update records so leadership could see what was happening, instead of letting them spend that time with customers. That model is finished.” The company argues that the next generation of revenue teams will rely on tools that do the heavy lifting, freeing personnel to focus on high‑value interactions.
With the seed round now closed, Zero plans to roll out a beta of its full‑stack solution to early adopters later this year, followed by a broader commercial launch in 2027. The funding also gives the startup runway to attract top AI talent in Europe and to forge integration partnerships that could accelerate adoption among mid‑market enterprises seeking a unified, AI‑powered revenue platform.
Why It Matters
For Zero, the infusion of $10.3 million provides the runway to move from prototype to production‑grade offering, a transition that will test the company’s ability to deliver on its promise of a fully autonomous revenue‑ops stack. The involvement of founders from Lovable, Langdock and Silo AI not only brings capital but also deep expertise in deploying AI at scale, which could shorten Zero’s time‑to‑market and improve model robustness.
Incumbent CRM vendors such as Salesforce and HubSpot now face a nascent competitor that is betting on AI to compress the sales and customer‑success workflow into a single, self‑serving system. If Zero can demonstrate measurable reductions in manual effort and higher net‑revenue retention for early customers, it may force the larger players to accelerate their own AI integrations or consider strategic partnerships to protect market share. Direct competitors in the mid‑market space—Pipedrive, Freshworks and Zoho—will also need to reassess their product roadmaps to address the emerging expectation of AI‑driven automation across the entire revenue cycle.
Key Points
- Zero raised $10.3 million in a seed round led by Primary Venture Partners
- Investors also included Inception Fund, Defiant, Greens and founders of Lovable, Supercell, Langdock and Silo AI
- The round is among the largest seed investments ever for a Finnish tech company
- Zero’s AI platform aims to replace traditional CRM, prospecting and revenue‑ops tools with autonomous agents
- Founders previously scaled Smartly to $100 million in ARR
Analysis
The $10.3 million seed raise places Zero at the high end of valuation expectations for AI‑first B2B SaaS startups, where investors often apply 15‑20x projected ARR multiples to early‑stage companies. While the exact valuation was not disclosed, the size of the round relative to typical Finnish seed deals suggests a premium that reflects both the founders' track record and the perceived market opportunity in AI‑augmented revenue operations. The CRM market, long dominated by a few large incumbents, is now seeing a wave of AI‑driven challengers that promise to automate data hygiene, prospecting and post‑sale engagement. Zero’s approach—bundling these functions into a single autonomous system—aligns with a broader industry shift toward consolidation of the revenue stack, reducing the need for multiple point solutions and enabling leaner go‑to‑market teams. For operators, the promise of AI agents that handle routine tasks could lower headcount requirements while maintaining or improving net‑revenue retention, a key metric for SaaS growth. Investors are likely to view Zero as a platform play that can scale quickly if the AI models achieve high accuracy, opening the path to a sizable Series A at a premium multiple. In the longer term, successful execution could pressure incumbents to accelerate their own AI roadmaps or consider strategic acquisitions to retain enterprise customers seeking more automated workflows.