Folk
The simple CRM that works like a smart spreadsheet for relationships.
About
Folk is a Paris-based CRM built for teams that found Salesforce and HubSpot too clunky. Founded in April 2020 by Simo Lemhandez with Thibaud Elziere and Jean-Yves Poilleux inside the eFounders startup studio, it looks and feels like a collaborative spreadsheet, which keeps the learning curve near zero for non-technical users. It connects to Gmail or Outlook to import contacts and email history, then layers on pipelines, enrichment, email sequences and automations.
The company reports more than 100,000 users worldwide, won a top Product Hunt placement at launch, and Lemhandez was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe. Funding figures vary by source, from about $3.3 million in seed funding to roughly $9 million from Accel, which suggests the exact capitalization is not cleanly public. Its folkX Chrome extension captures contact details from LinkedIn and X, a small feature that punches above its weight for prospecting workflows.
Pricing starts at $24 per user per month after a free plan and a 14-day trial. Folk is deliberately not an enterprise platform: reviewers praise the speed of deployment and contact management basics, while noting it cannot match the depth of Attio or the incumbents on complex sales processes. For founders, investors, recruiters and partnerships teams managing relationships rather than rigid pipelines, that simplicity is the point.
What it can do
- Spreadsheet-style contact management with groups and pipelines
- Automatic contact enrichment and email history import
- folkX Chrome extension for LinkedIn and X capture
- Email sequences, reminders and workflow automations
- Team collaboration with shared contact views
- 100+ integrations including Gmail, Outlook and Slack
Setup
- Sign up for the free plan on folk.app.
- Connect Gmail or Outlook to import contacts and email history.
- Install the folkX Chrome extension to capture contacts from LinkedIn and X.
- Organize contacts into groups and build pipelines for your workflow.
- Set up email sequences, reminders and automations; upgrade to a paid plan when you outgrow free.
Prerequisites
A Gmail or Outlook account for contact import; a browser for the folkX extension.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 6/10
Scored 6/10 (metrics tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: founded Apr 2020 Paris, eFounders studio (fahimai.com); 100k+ users, Product Hunt top placement, Forbes 30 Under 30 (fahimai.com); pricing $24/user/mo with free plan (folk.app). Strengths: genuinely simple onboarding, strong founder story, transparent pricing. Docked for: (1) funding figures conflict across sources ($3.3M to $9M); (2) feature depth lags Attio and incumbents for complex sales orgs. License: proprietary commercial SaaS (freemium).
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 6.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 7.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 7.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 6.0/10
- · Founded Apr 2020 Paris by Simo Lemhandez (+ Elziere, Poilleux), eFounders studio; 100k+ users; Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe (fahimai.com)
- · Funding figures conflict: $3.3M seed (bouncewatch.com) vs ~$9M from Accel (fahimai.com) vs $4.5M (stacksync.com)
- · Pricing from $24/user/mo, free plan, 14-day trial (folk.app); folkX Chrome extension for LinkedIn capture (stacksync.com)
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.