While growing up in his family’s electrical and industrial distribution business in India, Abhay Kalra observed firsthand how administrative tasks prevented the inside sales team from pursuing new business. With a sales team at capacity and growth seemingly hinging on new hires, Kalra saw a use case for automation.

“We had chances to grow, but the team didn’t have time to go after new accounts; they were too busy processing what was already on their plate,” Kalra told MDM. “And since everything depended on hiring, growth was always limited by how fast we could find and train good people.”

While studying electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkley, Kalra founded what he believes is the solution: Avent.

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Backed by startup accelerator Y Combinator (YC) and officially launched on Aug. 14, the platform promises a way to monitor and streamline distribution and manufacturing customer requests however they come in. The platform automates three core functions:

• Quotes: Finds correct product and pricing, generates quotes and prepares them for review
• Order Entry: Matches purchase orders to earlier quotes, creates sales orders and inputs them into ERP systems
• Product Search: Deciphers customer requests even when descriptions or part numbers don’t match exactly, adapting to common industry abbreviations

“When a customer sends in an RFQ, the system finds the right pricing, generates a quote and sends it out,” Kalra explains. “When a PO comes in, it’s matched against the quote, and the sales order is created and entered into the ERP.” Of course, he assures, a salesperson still reviews everything before it goes out.

Essentially, the system is designed to reduce customer service representative administrative work by 50% and operate continuously to eliminate order processing backlogs that can lead to missed revenue, according to the company.

Y Combinator Investment

Avent’s acceptance into Y Combinator — the same accelerator behind big names such as Airbnb, Stripe and DoorDash — could signal investor confidence in the industrial distribution technology market. YC invested $500,000 in the company through its standard funding structure.

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“A lot of very capable people try to build for this industry, but they underestimate how hard it is to get a clear answer by just asking, ‘What’s broken?'” Kalra said. “Most people will say, ‘Nothing,’ not because everything’s perfect, but because they don’t always know what’s possible.”

The platform currently serves distributors in the U.S., Mexico and the UK.

View the launch video, published on Aug. 14, below.

Lead photo: Abhay Kalra, founder of Avent