As sales teams grapple with data fragmentation and time-consuming workflows, one French startup claims it has found a way to realign outbound strategy with real-world sales behaviors.
Zeliq raises €5M to rebuild B2B prospecting from the ground up
Zeliq, founded by Dorian Ciavarella in 2023, has secured €5 million in pre-seed funding to tackle one of the toughest challenges in modern sales: turning prospecting into a measurable, automated, and data-accurate engine for growth. The round was led by Resonance, with participation from Pauline Boucon Duval, Obratori (L’Oréal’s startup studio), and a group of angel investors including former sales leaders from tech scale-ups.
This early funding—announced last year but only recently reflected in product developments—has allowed Zeliq to iterate quickly on what Ciavarella describes as a “platform built by salespeople for salespeople.” The effort is to consolidate what traditionally required a patchwork of tools: contact databases, email finders, sequencing platforms, LinkedIn scrapers, and analytics dashboards.
“We saw that sales teams were spending over a third of their day just handling tools that barely communicated with each other. The vision with Zeliq was to put everything in the same place—and make it smarter,” explained Ciavarella in our interview.
Three core areas targeted by the funding
The €5 million is not being thrown at growth-for-growth’s-sake. Instead, Zeliq appears focused on core engineering enhancements and scale-up of operations in three tightly scoped areas:
- Data enrichment – Fixing the issue of outdated B2B records with AI-verified email and phone number validation (98% accuracy for direct numbers, around 65% for emails).
- Multichannel prospecting flows – Enabling campaigns across LinkedIn, email, VOIP calls, and even WhatsApp, all synced into one timeline.
- Operational consolidation – Replacing fragmented sales stacks with Zeliq’s unified interface to reduce the estimated 36% of time reps spend on non-selling activities (source).
A feature set built with high-output teams in mind
Zeliq’s pitch is precise: reclaim time, cut manual errors, and scale hyper-personalized outreach without hiring more SDRs. It does this by connecting data to execution directly inside the platform. Here’s what that looks like:
| Feature | Tangible impact | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 450M+ contact records | Replaces third-party lists with searchable business profiles linked to firmographics | zeliq.com |
| AI-based enrichment | Pulls validated direct lines and personal work emails via intelligent crawling | Safehear case study |
| Multichannel sequences | Follows up contacts via LinkedIn InMail, cold emails, and VoIP calls | Dynamic Business |
| Chrome extension for LinkedIn | Pulls verified profile data directly into outreach flows | Woodpecker |
| Smart ice-breaker generation | Uses AI to generate engaging intros based on LinkedIn or company activity | Tech.eu |
Has it worked for actual sales teams?
The short answer is yes, if internal case studies are to be trusted. At Safehear, a client in the industrial audio safety sector, Zeliq replaced five separate tools. The result: less duplication, fewer data-sync issues, and more time on selling. Sales reps reportedly saved up to 3 hours per day, thanks to centralized enrichment and outreach flows.
The implications stretch further than convenience. According to Salesforge.ai, centralizing sales tools can reduce missed quota risks by giving managers clearer insight into team activity and pipeline slack. Zeliq’s real-time dashboards and activity monitoring aim to do just that.
FAQ: what Zeliq actually does—and why it matters
How does Zeliq’s AI-driven approach improve sales productivity?
By using AI to verify data and generate contextual messaging, Zeliq reduces manual research time. This allows salespeople to focus on connecting with leads rather than managing disparate tools or guessing at relevance.
What makes Zeliq’s database of 450 million contacts unique?
The contact base is enriched continuously with updated firmographic and contact info, validated through smart crawling and public sources—far more accurate than static lists sold by third-party vendors.
How does Zeliq’s multichannel outreach feature work?
Sequences can be designed to initiate messages via LinkedIn, follow up with tailored cold emails, schedule automated VoIP calls, and even ping targets via WhatsApp or Slack if relevant. All messaging appears on one thread inside the platform.
What are the benefits of using Zeliq’s LinkedIn extension?
The Chrome add-on lets users instantly extract company information, title, and contact details, skipping the usual 4-5 step process of data transfer between platforms. It also suggests relevant ice-breakers for outreach.
How does Zeliq’s CRM integration enhance sales processes?
It syncs contact activity directly into connected CRMs like Salesforce or HubSpot. This improves attribution, helps pipeline reporting, and ensures no lead is tracked outside the system.
With competitors like Apollo.io and Lemlist still requiring heavy integrations or external tools, Zeliq’s bet on platform consolidation feels bold. Whether sales teams will adopt another hybrid solution—or demand even tighter CRM native features—remains a question that could trigger broader shifts in SalesTech.
