About Verse.io
Verse is a next-generation Lead Conversion Platform with specialized technology and highly skilled human concierges. We focus on engaging, qualifying, and converting inbound leads for marketing and sales teams. Our mission is to close the lead conversion gap by driving significantly higher revenue for our customers while giving their prospects a better experience along the way.
Our leadership team
Founder & Co-CEO
David Tal is the co-founder and co-CEO of Verse. Born and raised in San Diego, and a VC-backed entrepreneur for 10+ years, David has always been passionate about “putting San Diego on the map” as a center of tech, innovation and disruption. This passion has driven him and Verse to become one of San Diego’s fastest growing companies.
After graduating with a degree in Economics from UCLA in 2003, David experienced firsthand how quickly the world had moved online and how consumer journeys increasingly began and lived online. He also saw how businesses were trying to engage and communicate with this new growing stream of online leads and prospects. So, David set out to help companies in real estate and other industries create the most effective and authentic connections with their prospects. And this goal has been successfully achieved by effectively merging the best abilities of AI (speed and productivity) and people (smarts and empathy).
David lives in downtown San Diego with his beautiful, successful wife and three children.
Founder & Co-CEO
Avi Tal is the co-founder and co-CEO of Verse. He oversees the company’s operations, product, and strategy. Born and raised in San Diego, Avi—like his brother David Tal—has always been passionate about “putting San Diego on the map”. Prior to launching Verse, Avi founded a WiFi media network in Latin America. He partnered with hotel chains to inject hyperlocal content catered to business travelers on hotel WiFi authentication pages. The product was quickly adopted and scaled to over 150,000 hotel rooms across Mexico. The business eventually merged with a venture capital-backed company. This was Avi’s first foray into the exciting world of Silicon Valley, where he learned about developing technologies, building teams, and raising venture capital.
Seeing his brother David doing really well as a real estate broker, Avi became fascinated with an idea of how technology could help improve the lives of real estate professionals. So, the brothers launched their first business together in 2011, MyAgentFinder.com, which was eventually acquired. After witnessing firsthand how merging the best abilities of AI and people helped businesses create the most timely, effective, and authentic connections with their prospects, David and Avi went on to launch Verse in 2013.
Avi lives in Mission Beach, where you can catch him riding some waves during his lunch break on a sunny day.
Chief Financial Officer
Victor has served as Chief Financial Officer since April 2019 and oversees the company’s finance, accounting, legal, and HR operations. Prior to Verse, Victor served as Vice President of Financial Relations at Renovate America. Earlier in his career, Victor held a variety of leadership positions at Sempra Energy and its subsidiaries, including roles in M&A and investor relations. He began his career as an associate at Morgan Stanley. Victor holds a BA in Political Science from Stanford University and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
SVP of Sales
Hillary is a strategic sales leader with over 15 years of experience building and scaling sales organizations. Her diverse career includes executive leadership positions at companies in real estate, tech, financial services, and other industries. Hillary joined Verse in 2017 bringing her passion for people, products, processes, and data to the organization. Her growth mentality and demand for excellence extend beyond sales. In 2020, Hillary enrolled in the Harvard Business Analytics Program where she is currently studying digital strategy and data science. In her spare time, Hillary enjoys golf, tennis, good whiskey, and helping small businesses get off the ground.
VP of Marketing
Sheel has a background in building predictable and scalable revenue-generating models for companies. Her experience ranges from pre-seed to Series D ventures. Sheel held demand generation leadership roles at companies such as Quantcast and Marketo. She has a deep interest in and talent for decoding the unique marketing strategy and figuring the right path for hyper-growth. Sheel also has a passion for perfecting end-to-end customer experience – assuring that the customer is delighted with every single interaction. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her family, playing with her pup Fei, stand up comedy, playing pool, poker, and board games.
Head of Engineering
Joel serves as the Head of Engineering and has been a leader at Verse since its inception. He has spent the past decade building internet technologies aimed at bridging the interaction gap between machines and humans. Joel’s passion for humanizing technology is most visible in his work leading Verse’s engineering department. He encourages the team to be creative and effective leaders by fostering an atmosphere of psychological safety and a culture of unwavering values.
Head of Business Development
Paul brought to Verse over 25 years of experience in tech startups. He is a passionate leader who thrives on the challenges and excitement of entrepreneurial ventures. As the Head of Business Development at Verse, Paul plays a key role in the company’s growth through channel partner development, new industry exploration, and strategic accounts. Prior to Verse, Paul served as CEO and cofounder of 1appworks, a location-based mobile app platform for casinos, hospitals, and restaurants. His business development experience spans multiple industries including high tech, media, and ecommerce. Paul holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from UC Berkeley and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Our investors
Verse is backed by strong investors who believe that solving for the challenges around lead conversion is the next frontier in marketing and sales performance
How it all began
Every superhero has an origin story
In 2013, digital marketing professionals David and Avi Tal co-founded Verse as a solution to a fundamental problem virtually all businesses experience – the lead conversion gap. Most companies have a great difficulty just establishing meaningful contact with the leads that they spend so much money and time to generate—let alone qualifying, nurturing, and converting them into sales. And, to a varying degree, almost every marketer has experienced their budget and effort needlessly wasted which results in frustration for them and lower revenue for their business.
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The Tals researched call centers but found out that they were too expensive and couldn’t manage high lead volume well. When they looked at marketing and sales enablement software solutions, they couldn’t find any that could create truly authentic conversations, support real-time 2-way text and omnichannel communications, campaign-level nurturing, or switch instantly to conversations with human reps at the right times.
So, they put together the combination of experts in communications technology, AI, NLU (Natural Language Understanding), data ingestion, integration, CRM technology, data science, and contact center management that was required to optimize lead engagement, qualification, nurturing, and conversion.
Today, Verse is the leader in lead conversion and serves the lead engagement and qualification needs of a range of customers including small businesses and large organizations in various industries such as Real Estate, Mortgage, Home Services, Clean/Solar Energy, and others.