Tourial, the no-code product storytelling platform that enables marketing and sales teams to leverage product stories throughout the revenue funnel, today announced a $3.4 million seed funding round led by Bonfire Ventures with key investments from Knoll Ventures, SaaS Ventures, TnT Ventures, and angel investor Tom Noonan. Software companies use Tourial’s platform to design and share interactive product experiences that provide technology buyers with a way to experience a product’s value early in their consideration process.

With over 80% of all B2B research being conducted before the buyer ever reaches out, the software selling process is rapidly evolving. Companies need a way to easily design great product experiences without the technical and production challenges associated with video and demo environments.

“Product videos and demo environments really struggle to communicate a product’s value early in the evaluation process,” said Jason Graub, CEO and Co-founder of Tourial. “Marketers can now easily design product experiences that focus on what converts & sells — great product stories — and focus less on the non-essential elements within the product that distract the buyer.”

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Marketing teams are typically hard-pressed for time. Tourial’s platform empowers marketing teams to design these product experiences in minutes; something that previously would have been a months-long project with many stakeholders.

“I originally founded Tourial after custom-building a click-through product experience in my previous marketing role,” said Andy Binkley, co-founder of Tourial. “It took several months and $40k of internal resources to build just one! Although it was a huge success in driving demand and accelerating sales cycles, I knew it wasn’t scalable.”

Tourial is a powerful yet familiar platform for marketers to use. The solution:

1. Leverages existing product assets such as screenshots, video, gifs, and templates that enable powerful storytelling – and easily update these assets as the product evolves.
2. Captures the best elements (and leaves out the worst) of video and the demo environment with an easy-to-use design studio.
3. Can be implemented across a revenue team’s strategic initiatives including website, paid media, outbound, post-demo collateral, virtual & in-person events, product releases, etc.
4. Utilizes actionable buyer intent and engagement data to improve the Tourial experience and accelerate sales cycles.

“In a product-led world where buyers have less time and patience than ever, it’s imperative for marketers to explain the ‘what and why’ of their product as early as possible in their prospect’s consideration process,” said Brett Queener, Bonfire Venture’s lead investor. “In our view, every software company will want a tourial as a main page CTA as they deliver higher visitor engagement, better lead conversion, and increased revenue.”

In 2022, product storytelling is essential. Buyers need to understand the products they are evaluating before the demo or trial stage. At the same time, software products can be very hard to explain. Each individual product is different in terms of both functionality and value. A unique blend of storytelling and product education is required to successfully communicate a product’s purpose, and the levels at which these elements are emphasized vary at each stage of the buyer’s journey.

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Tourial’s team has had early successes working with trailblazing software companies such as DataRobot, Salesloft, Sprinklr, InsightSquared, TopHat, and Dun & Bradstreet, who are adapting their marketing strategy with the changes in their buyer preferences.

Tourial will use this funding to recruit and hire top talent, invest in developing innovative new features to enhance the product storytelling platform, and expand both the use of Tourial across more channels as well as the data and insights marketing and sales teams can use to drive further growth.