Emerge Uses Beautiful.ai to Secure $130M in Series B Funding

In an effort to streamline workflows, many teams will turn to tools and softwares that increase efficiency. Emerge — Freight Procurement Platform — is no different.

Emerge was born from decades of experience in logistics and acknowledging the gap in procurement processes. They offer an advanced Freight Procurement Platform for both shippers and carriers in an effort to facilitate mutually beneficial relationships between both parties and create a positive network effect. With over 1,000 shippers, and an impressive 225,000+ loads posted to market, Emerge has to prioritize communication and productivity. 

Emerge’s Director of Branding, Brielle Patterson, discovered Beautiful.ai from a previous coworker and introduced it to the team. They quickly adopted Beautiful.ai’s platform and have been using it ever since for internal training presentations, advisory and board meetings, pitch decks and more. Michael Brooks II, SVP of Business Operations, explained that, “Templates have helped onboard less creative team members who can still self-serve in Beautiful.ai.” This creative unlock has helped them achieve more across various departments from marketing to operations and finance. 

Emerge streamlines the presentation process 

When the team at Emerge initially started using Beautiful.ai, it was at the onset of working from home. In fact, it was used for their first deck created for their advisors to describe how they were going to get through the challenges of a newly-remote workplace. With over 250 employees, it gave teams the design guardrails they needed to manage their own decks. Brooks adds, “It gave us better autonomy, and improved people being able to take care of work themselves.” Having Beautiful.ai as a tool gave each team their own personal deck designer without having to add to the company’s headcount, and saved them a couple of hours per presentation.

“My presentations weren’t as riveting and it was harder to get the message across in PowerPoint,” Emerge Director of Employee Experience, Teresa Turner said on the switch.

For a booming business, high pressure, fast moving projects require teams to be working in tandem on the same deck. Being able to collaborate and edit on the fly— whether in office or at home— for board meeting presentations was a game changer for the team. Especially for last minute deliverables that have no room for errors. Beautiful.ai has allowed Emerge to streamline their presentation process without having to worry about whether different departments were making a mess of their decks. Pre-set Team Themes make it easy for collaborators to jump in the deck and create additional content without the pressure of maintaining branding and upholding design standards. 

Cross-functional and crucial

Emerge uses Beautiful.ai across several different departments, for a variety of reasons. Brooks said, “The cross-functional use of Beautiful.ai leads to impactful assets.” From onboarding and training to using the platform as a tool for monthly finance reports, the simplicity of deck design helps cross-departmental productivity. Across the different departments, Emerge is using Beautiful.ai multiple times a week. 

While the team is still transitioning from PowerPoint, they use Beautiful.ai where it counts. “If I am going to be in a meeting where I am going to seriously be presenting anything I tend to lean more towards Beautiful.ai versus PowerPoint not only for some of the graphics but for the overall branding in general,” Turner said. “I think it’s a lot more user-friendly to customize and create those unique slides that make an impact.” This is especially true for their quarterly executive summit where the team reviews previous quarters and plans for the upcoming one. Being able to utilize Beautiful.ai’s graphs and charts has helped the more visual-learners in the audience digest the data being presented to them.  

Emerge lands $130M in series B funding with Beautiful.ai deck

Any business looking to scale will tell you the importance of board meetings. This is where stakeholders can discuss the health of the company, and strategize for future rounds of investor funding. As Senior Vice President of Business Operations, Brooks understands the importance of a professional pitch deck. In a highly competitive market, feeling confident about your deck design can make all the difference when you get in front of investors. When it was time for Emerge to start talking to investors for series B funding, Brooks used Beautiful.ai to pitch their story. The team was able to secure $130M in series B funding with their Beautiful.ai presentation. An important feat for a growing business. 

Brooks leaves us with, “Series B funding has been our biggest accomplishment as an organization and Beautiful.ai played a role in that.” We’ll chalk that up as a win.