Founders Everywhere: Nicolas Christiaen and Jonas Deprez
Nicolas Christiaen and Jonas Deprez are the co-founders and co-CEOs of Donna, the best assistant for sales reps on the go.
Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
Donna embodies the ideal personal assistant—a seamless blend of efficiency, intuition, and proactive support. The innovative AI persona was brought to life by co-founders and co-CEOs Nicolas Christiaen and Jonas Deprez. The name draws on inspiration from Nicolas’ real-life assistant, as well as the beloved character Donna from the TV show “Suits,” known for being the perfect assistant to everyone. Just like her fictional counterpart, Donna streamlines workflows, anticipates needs, and enhances productivity for sales reps on the go. After meetings, she calls them to accurately update their CRM system and initiate next steps, making her an invaluable asset to any team or individual striving for peak performance. She uses familiar communication channels like Teams, iMessage, WhatsApp and email, allowing sales reps to stick with their preferred tools. The AI sales assistant also integrates seamlessly with popular CRM tools like Salesforce and HubSpot.
Nicolas and Jonas are serial entrepreneurs based in Belgium. Nicolas previously founded the fintech company Cashforce, which was acquired by the German payment platform TIS in 2022. Jonas launched the retail data company Daltix, which was acquired by Colruyt Group in 2023. They bonded over their passion for tech and their personal desire to have someone like Donna in their daily workflow.
Now you can focus on what you do best, and let Donna handle the rest!
What sparked the idea for Donna?
Nicolas: The idea for Donna originated from my previous startup. I had an assistant named Dana who handled my calendar, emails, and other tasks. My VP of Sales would frequently call her after meetings to relay follow-up tasks instead of filling in the CRM system himself. This showed me that no salesperson on the planet likes to update the CRM and would prefer having a personal assistant by their side. This insight, combined with meeting Jonas, who shared similar frustrations around sales admin, led to the creation of Donna.
What is Donna’s North Star?
Our North Star is to have every sales rep on the go, worldwide, equipped with their own Donna so they can focus on selling, while Donna handles the rest. This at a fraction of the cost of a real sales assistant. We believe the future of sales is about the human part of selling, while AI takes over the repetitive and administrative tasks.
What sets Donna apart?
Our team is composed of experienced, passionate, and driven individuals who thrive on working together at a high pace toward our North Star. We have a specific focus on sales representatives who are frequently on the move, and our initial go-to-market strategy targets industries where we already have established networks to accelerate our growth. We aim to seamlessly integrate with existing tools like email, WhatsApp / iMessage, and CRM systems, functioning like a personal sales assistant without requiring additional installations.
Tell us about some recent milestones Donna has crushed.
We secured a €1.5M seed round in just 3 weeks and plan to use the funds for product development to enhance user experience and for go-to-market efforts to scale rapidly. We plan to adopt both bottom-up and top-down approaches to reach individual users and enterprise clients.
We have 250 active users and 500 companies on our waiting list. We deliberately selected these users to ensure a positive user experience and fine-tune our product's UX. Our goal is to scale into the thousands of users in the coming months.
How has building Donna compared to previous entrepreneurial ventures?
Jonas: There are always countless pitfalls and stumbling blocks to navigate when building a company. In our previous ventures, it felt like we were sailing a ship through dense fog, unable to see the obstacles ahead. We would spot an iceberg just in time to steer clear, only to face another immediate challenge. Now, there’s less fog and you can see further across the horizon. It gives us the comfort and confidence to go faster because it’s easier to make quick decisions. This time around we’re also able to leverage a larger network to access more resources, expertise, and opportunities. It's like having better weather conditions, a clearer map, and better navigation tools on our journey.
Fun facts:
Nicolas: When I was younger, I won a global online Formula One competition, and if I weren’t building Donna, I'd probably be working on a Formula One team.
Jonas: During a hiking trip in Romania, a storm caught us by surprise. While on top of a peak, lightning struck just three meters away, creating a tremendous sound as it hit a stone. It was a memorable and humbling experience!
Talk to Donna here: www.askdonna.com
Listen to Katherine von Jan (KVJ) with Kevin Delaney on the Venture Everywhere podcast: Goodbye Tough Days, Listen now on Apple and Spotify and check out to all our past episodes here!
