Cliently, which moved to San Antonio last July, announced Tuesday that is has received $1 million in venture capital.

Active Capital, a new venture capital firm based in San Antonio and led by Pat Matthews, is the lead investor in the seed stage round of funding. Other investors include Altair.

Spencer Farber, founder and CEO of Cliently, founded the company a few years ago. He saw the need for companies to engage their customers more dynamically while working as director of sales for Pandadoc. And that’s where he got the idea for Cliently, which is an automated sales engagement and lead generation platform.

Cliently also hired Huey Ly, a former senior engineer at Rackspace and Mailgun, with the latest funding, Farber said.

Previously, Cliently, which was based in Myrtle Beach, SC,  received a $200,000 grant from SC Launch when it was accepted into its entrepreneurial program in July of 2017. That’s in addition to a $50,000 grant the company previously received.

Cliently is based at Active Capital’s office, which is also home to Funnel.AI, another Active Capital portfolio company.

Cliently’s sales platform uses personalized emails, videos, and physical mail for sales. It is aimed at small businesses looking to drive more engagement with customers. Cliently allows small businesses to send personalized messages to targeted contacts with ease, Farber said.

“Our whole goal is to find unique ways to engage people,” he said.

At the end of the day, a lot of the small businesses have great products and services, but it’s hard to get in front of customers, Farber said.  Video is shown to engage people at a 25 percent higher rate than written email alone, he said.

Video adds credibility to a small business and starts a relationship with the customer, Farber said.

Cliently also offers postcards, handwritten notes and gift cards to Starbucks or Home Depot or some other targeted retailer that is tailored to the industry and pitch, Farber said.

Cliently has also built integrations into its app for customer relationship management programs like Salesforce, Pipedrive and HubSpot.

Cliently has five full time employees and five contractors. It is looking to hire a full stack developer in San Antonio and some other key positions with the new funding, Farber said.