Pipedrive vs SugarCRM

2023. Pipedrive unveiled AI-powered sales assistant



Pipedrive, the user-friendly and efficient sales CRM designed for small businesses, has unveiled its new AI-driven Sales Assistant, currently in beta. This innovative tool offers sales professionals insights into a deal's likelihood of success and suggestions for optimal next steps, significantly enhancing the chances of closing deals successfully. Companies that leverage the Sales Assistant experience a threefold increase in deal closures compared to those who don't. By incorporating AI capabilities into the Sales Assistant, Pipedrive aims to empower sales teams with targeted and actionable guidance, enabling them to further elevate their performance. The integration of AI into the Sales Assistant equips small businesses with a virtual assistant that utilizes cutting-edge technology to help them prioritize tasks, focus on key deals, and identify potential challenges in their sales pipeline.


2020. Sales CRM Pipedrive becomes unicorn



The latest European company to achieve unicorn status is Pipedrive, the sales CRM tool catering to small and medium-sized businesses. The company recently secured a majority investment from Vista Equity Partners, a U.S.-based private equity firm specializing in enterprise software. This investment has elevated Pipedrive's valuation to an impressive $1.5 billion. Pipedrive has always distinguished itself as sales software prioritizing the needs of salespeople, rather than just their managers. It was developed by sales professionals, for sales professionals. However, the platform has evolved into a comprehensive CRM solution that encompasses marketing functionalities as well. Pipedrive proudly boasts a user base of 95,000 companies relying on its software.


2020. SugarCRM acquires Node to gain predictive customer intelligence



SugarCRM made an announcement today about its acquisition of Node, a customer intelligence startup. This strategic move not only brings valuable AI expertise to SugarCRM but also introduces a customer prediction component to its platform. This means that SugarCRM will now have the capability to identify customers who are most likely to convert or churn. As a result, SugarCRM enters into direct competition with industry players like Adobe and Salesforce, who have long offered predictive intelligence layers. Established in 2014 and having raised over $43 million, Node fills a significant gap for SugarCRM by enhancing engagement analytics and enabling action across various stages of the business. Simultaneously, it serves as a unique market differentiator for the company.


2019. SugarCRM moved into marketing automation with Salesfusion acquisition



In an effort to strengthen its marketing automation capabilities, SugarCRM has made the acquisition of Salesfusion. Recognizing the need for improvements in the marketing automation aspect of their platform, SugarCRM CEO Craig Charlton opted to acquire a company rather than building the functionality from scratch, considering it a faster approach. SugarCRM has been undergoing a transitional phase as it faces challenges in keeping pace with industry giants, especially Salesforce. Last summer, the company entered the private equity market and secured a significant investment from Accel-KKR, reportedly a nine-figure deal according to various reports and characterized as a leveraged buyout by PitchBook.


2017. Pipedrive CRM gets $17M



Pipedrive, a CRM platform specifically developed to enhance sales for SMBs, has successfully secured $17 million in Series B funding. The newly acquired capital will be allocated towards product and technological advancements, expanding the partner ecosystem, and global marketing efforts. Pipedrive boasts a customer base of over 30,000 small businesses from 140+ countries, positioning itself as a formidable competitor against well-established players in the SMB CRM space. Originally recognized for its sales software catering primarily to salespeople rather than managers, Pipedrive has evolved into a comprehensive CRM platform. It has achieved this by integrating with over 50 online software solutions and consistently adding new integrations each month. These integrations encompass a range of business tools including Google Apps, Trello, Zapier, Mailchimp, Yesware, and Pandadoc.


2016. IBM tightens integration with SugarCRM



SugarCRM has partnered with IBM Cloud to enhance the security and control of its customer relationship management platform. This joint offering enables Sugar's platform to be deployed on IBM's dedicated, private bare metal clouds, resulting in improved overall security and performance, according to SugarCRM. With IBM's expansive network of 46 cloud data centers worldwide, Sugar users can benefit from a larger and faster network. IBM and SugarCRM have maintained an ongoing relationship, as evidenced by their previous collaboration in September, where they introduced IBM Marketing Cloud for SugarCRM, integrating marketing and sales operations to enhance the customer experience.


2016. SugarCRM gets improved Search, Tagging



The latest iteration of the customer relationship management (CRM) software platform, SugarCRM 7.7, introduces several enhancements and new capabilities to improve search functionality. One notable addition is the introduction of custom tags, allowing CRM users to tag any record within the application. These Sugar tags are seamlessly integrated into the Sugar database. The key advantage, as highlighted by SugarCRM officials, is that these tags can now be accessed through a unified global search experience instead of relying on a separate tag search mechanism. In addition, SugarCRM offers a comprehensive "knowledge base" feature, enabling users to create articles on various topics and share them both internally and externally. The knowledge base includes an intelligence panel, which intelligently displays context-sensitive information, helping agents and customers easily locate relevant articles.


2015. Cloud-Based CRM Pipedrive gets $9 Million funding



Pipedrive, a SaaS CRM tool designed to assist small companies in managing and boosting sales, has successfully concluded a Series A funding round, raising $9 million. With a focus on small to medium-sized businesses, Pipedrive has gained popularity among various tech companies, including Fortumo, Postmates, FalconSocial, and Blippar. The primary objective of Pipedrive is to address the shortcomings of traditional CRM/sales software by streamlining the user experience. Conventional CRM solutions often demand excessive data entry and lack clearly defined workflows, leading to user dissatisfaction and, ultimately, missed sales opportunities. In contrast, Pipedrive offers a more intuitive approach with its visual dashboard, presenting deals in a pipeline format that spans from initial contact and contract negotiations to finalized deals. Notable competitors in the CRM market for Pipedrive include Zoho CRM, Base, Capsule, Insightly, and PipelineDeals. Furthermore, within the CRM landscape, all players compete against Salesforce at the high end and the humble spreadsheet at the lower end.


2010. SugarCRM 6 - cloudy open-source CRM



While the main competitors (Salesforce and Microsoft) entertain each other with the lawsuits, SugarCRM gradually strengthens its market position. Yesterday the company officially announced the release of SugarCRM 6. The major changes have affected the interface - it became much easier, more convenient and flexible. Users will be able to leave on screen only these elements that are used. The new convenient contextual search panel lets you view search results without leaving the current page, and the new recent pages panel makes navigation easier. It's interesting that the new interface is available only in payed (Professional and Enterprise) editions, but not in the free Community Edition. Because of this the company received another portion of critics, because it actively uses the "open-source" term for SugarCRM promotion. ***


2009. SugarCRM follows Salesforce strategy



SugarCRM, an open-source Salesforce alternative, is trying to keep up with its rival. The newest version SugarCRM 5.5 is focused on the same areas as latest Salesforce versions: platform, social tools and mobile access. Of course, the most significant upgrade is the new integration platform Sugar Cloud Connectors, that allows to link SugarCRM to third-party business applications using Web services. As an example, the company introduced the LinkedIn connector, that allows to display LinkedIn-profile data on contact page inside SugarCRM. The new activity streams module Social Feeds is very similar to the recently unveiled Salesforce Chatter. In addition to short message exchange and status updates, it allows you to receive notifications about various actions in the system, such as invoice creation or customer data change. ***