Koch Disruptive Technologies backs Emanate’s AI for industrial sales

Industrial sales has long run on veteran reps, crowded inboxes and dense product spec sheets. Emanate, a young San Francisco startup, thinks software can take over much of that work, and it now has Koch on its cap table. Koch Disruptive Technologies, the venture arm of Koch, Inc., is making a strategic investment in Emanate, the startup told Fortune in an exclusive. Neither company would put a number on it. What Emanate actually does Emanate builds AI revenue agents aimed at the industrial materials and distribution sector. Think of them as digital sales staff that handle the paperwork-heavy parts of selling steel, chemicals, components and similar goods. The startup is targeting four tasks that have historically been done by hand: quoting, account management, prospecting and pricing. Its pitch is that automating these steps can sharply cut the hours sales teams spend on them. The addressable market is not small. Emanate is going after an industry valued at approximately $5 trillion, a sector that has mostly watched the AI boom from the sidelines. The company is also lean. It operates with a team of fewer than ten people, focusing on vertical-specific AI built for the quirks of ind...