Clay Secures $100M, Doubling Valuation to $3.1B, Massive Bets on AI-Driven Sales

Clay, an AI-powered sale automation business based in New York, has raised $100 million to further develop the new field of "GTM engineering."

The sales automation startup Clay has secured $100 million in a Series C round of investment, more than doubling its valuation to $3.1 billion, according to a story published by Crunchbase News on Tuesday.

The transaction was headed by CapitalG, Alphabet's autonomous growth fund. In addition, new investor Sapphire Ventures joined the ranks of previous supporters Meritech Capital Partners, Sequoia Capital, First Round Capital, BoxGroup, and Boldstart Ventures. The funding is noteworthy since it was revealed just six months after Clay, a company located in New York, received $40 million at a $1.25 billion valuation in a Series B extension sponsored by Meritech Capital.

In May, Clay completed a Sequoia-led tender bid valued at $1.5 billion. With its most recent investment, Clay has raised $204 million since its founding in 2017. Crunchbase News was informed by the firm that it has not made any changes to the previous round it raised.

By creating automated workflows that, according to Clay, can analyze thousands of prospects, tailor outreach at scale, and spot income possibilities that would be hard to locate manually, his platform seeks to revolutionize conventional sales and marketing operations. Its AI agents may conduct research activities like tracking rival remarks to initiate customized advertising or examining satellite imagery to count warehouse parking places as a predictor of consumer fit. It interfaces with over 150 data sources. Additionally, the business says it has created a position known as a GTM (go-to-market) engineer.

The first profession that is truly AI-native is “GTM engineering,” and we think it will be the next big IT job category, says Kareem Amin, co-founder and CEO of Clay. Amin was the original creator of Clay, and Varun Anand joined in 2021.

Clay came up with the phrase "GTM engineering" in 2023, according to an email shared by Anand to Crunchbase News. He asserts that GTM engineers create revenue engines by fusing automation, AI, and growth acumen. They operate within specific constraints to create scalable systems, which is why we call it "engineering." However, they are coding revenue rather than software.