Surfe

01The full story

Surfe began in 2020 as Leadjet, a Chrome extension connecting LinkedIn activity with CRMs such as HubSpot and Pipedrive. The initial job was straightforward: capture a contact and sync the conversation without making a seller re-enter information. The company bootstrapped for its first two years and used CRM ecosystem partnerships to reach its first 100 customers. Its first $1M arrived in about a year and a half, largely through partnerships and marketplace distribution, according to CEO David Chevalier. The product later expanded from extension-led contact capture into a revenue workspace, web platform, API, and a data-enrichment layer. About three and a half years before the interview, the team built a waterfall approach for its client Google: route a query through multiple data sources in an order chosen for likely coverage and accuracy. Chevalier says Surfe now processes 50 million data points annually, draws on 15 enrichment sources, serves more than 10,000 paying companies and 50,000 users, and has roughly $15M ARR. The business combines seat licenses with usage-based credits and partner/API consumption. A 65–70-person team includes about 20 in sales; offices are in Paris, Barcelona, and New York.

Surfe’s first 100 customers came through partnerships with CRM platforms, especially HubSpot and Pipedrive. The founders approached partners with a measurable reason to care: making it easier for a seller to add contacts could increase product usage and help the CRM expand paid seats.