Accompany

Accompany is a Los Altos, California-based artificial intelligence company that developed a relationship intelligence and automated professional briefing platform for corporate executives. The software aggregated public web data to generate real-time profiles and comprehensive pre-meeting briefings designed to assist enterprise sales teams and business professionals with networking and relationship management. Prior to its exit, the startup raised a total of $40.6 million in venture capital funding from prominent institutional investors including CRV, ICONIQ Capital, and Ignition Partners. In May 2018, the technology conglomerate Cisco acquired the company for a reported $270 million in cash and assumed equity awards. Following the transaction, the standalone application was discontinued, and its machine learning capabilities were integrated directly into the Cisco Webex enterprise collaboration suite. Accompany was founded in 2013 by Amy Chang, Matthias Ruhl, and Ryan McDonough.

Accompany is an AI-driven relationship intelligence company that built real‑time people and company profiles for executives and sales teams; it was acquired by Cisco in 2018 and its technology now informs Cisco’s collaboration products like Webex[5][3].

High-Level Overview

• For an investment firm (not applicable): Accompany is a product company rather than an investment firm; below is the portfolio‑company style overview.
  - What product it builds: Accompany built a relationship‑intelligence platform that aggregates public and proprietary signals to produce real‑time profiles, org charts, relationship maps, and contextual briefings for people and companies[3][1].
  - Who it serves: Primary users were enterprise sales, corporate executives, and business development teams at large companies and professional services firms that rely on relationship knowledge to win and manage business[1][3].
  - What problem it solves: It addressed the problem of fragmented, stale contact and company data by automatically assembling up‑to‑date profiles and relationship context so users could find the right contacts, prepare for meetings, and accelerate sales cycles[3][1].
  - Growth momentum: Accompany raised roughly $40–40.6M and grew visibility among enterprise customers before being acquired by Cisco in May 2018, after which its technology and team were folded into Cisco’s collaboration roadmap[1][3][5].

Origin Story

• Founders and background: Accompany was founded in 2013 by Amy Chang (CEO) with co‑founders including Matthias Ruhl and Ryan McDonough; Amy Chang later joined Cisco to lead part of its collaboration business after the acquisition[3].
  - How the idea emerged: The company emerged from a need to provide executives and salespeople with concise, timely intelligence about the people and companies they engage with—combining signals from filings, news, social profiles, calendars and more into a single, digestible profile[3][1].
  - Early traction / pivotal moments: Early venture backing from firms such as CRV, ICONIQ Capital, Ignition Partners and Cowboy Ventures helped scale product and go‑to‑market efforts; the decisive milestone was Cisco’s announced acquisition in May 2018, which validated the product’s strategic value for enterprise collaboration[3][1].

Core Differentiators

• AI‑driven aggregation: Automated synthesis of many public and private signals into contextual, executive‑friendly profiles rather than raw contact lists[3][1].
  - Relationship intelligence focus: Emphasis on mapping relationships and organizational context (who knows whom, reporting lines) rather than only contact enrichment[1][3].
  - Enterprise integration: Designed to be embedded in enterprise workflows and collaboration tools (a key reason for Cisco’s acquisition and subsequent integration into Webex and other products)[3][5].
  - Executive usability: Product prioritized concise briefings and meeting prep features tailored to executives and customer‑facing teams, making data consumable in minutes rather than hours[3].

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

• Trend alignment: Accompany rode the convergence of AI/data‑enrichment and the need for contextual relationship data in B2B selling and executive decision‑making; this aligned with rising demand for “intelligence” layers within collaboration and CRM stacks[3][1].
  - Why timing mattered: By the mid‑2010s enterprises were seeking ways to make meetings and sales more efficient with data‑driven insights; Accompany’s timing coincided with growing expectations that collaboration tools would surface contextual intelligence in real time[3][5].
  - Market forces in its favor: Increasing volumes of public and professional data plus improvements in NLP and entity resolution made aggregated relationship profiles practical and valuable for revenue teams and executives[1][3].
  - Influence on ecosystem: Accompany helped push major vendors (notably Cisco) to bake relationship and people intelligence into collaboration products, raising the bar for in‑meeting and pre‑meeting contextualization features[5][3].

Quick Take & Future Outlook

• What’s next (post‑acquisition): Accompany as an independent brand was absorbed into Cisco; its core value proposition — relationship intelligence integrated into collaboration workflows — is likely to continue appearing as features inside Cisco’s Webex and collaboration portfolio[5][3].
  - Trends that will shape impact: Continued advances in entity resolution, privacy‑aware data usage, and tighter integration of AI insights into real‑time collaboration and CRM systems will determine how valuable embedded relationship intelligence becomes across enterprises[1][3].
  - How their influence may evolve: If Cisco fully operationalizes Accompany’s capabilities across its collaboration suite, expect more meetings and sales motions to be augmented by automated briefings, contact context, and relationship maps—shifting some competitive differentiation toward vendors who can surface accurate, privacy‑compliant people intelligence inside workflows[5][3].

Quick take: Accompany built a focused, enterprise‑grade relationship intelligence product that proved strategically important enough to be acquired by a major collaboration vendor; its legacy is the continued push to embed contextual people and company intelligence directly into the tools executives and salespeople use every day[3][5].