AI GTM Leader Clay Secures $100M Series C from CapitalG
AI-powered go-to-market (GTM) development platform Clay has announced a significant milestone, raising $100 million in Series C funding at a staggering $3.1 billion post-money valuation. This substantial investment, coming just six months after its Series B expansion, underscores the escalating investor confidence in AI-driven solutions for sales and marketing efficiency.
The round was spearheaded by CapitalG, Alphabet’s independent growth fund, with strong participation from existing investors including Sequoia Capital, Meritech Capital, First Round Capital, BoxGroup, and Boldstart. Notably, new investor Sapphire Ventures also joined the round. This latest infusion brings Clay’s total funding to $204 million since its inception in 2017.
Clay’s platform is designed to revolutionize how companies approach their go-to-market strategies by leveraging artificial intelligence and automation. It aims to transform traditional sales and marketing operations by building automated workflows that can research thousands of prospects, personalize outreach at scale, and identify revenue opportunities that would be nearly impossible to find manually. The platform integrates with over 150 data sources and utilizes AI agents to perform complex research tasks, such as monitoring competitor mentions to trigger personalized campaigns or even analyzing satellite imagery to predict customer fit.
A key focus for Clay, and a significant part of this new funding, is to fuel the growth of “GTM engineering” roles across the industry. Clay itself coined the term “GTM engineering” in 2023, envisioning it as the “first true AI-native profession” and potentially the next major job category in tech. GTM engineers are technical professionals who blend data analysis, business acumen, and AI tools to build scalable revenue engines. They identify inefficiencies in sales, growth, and customer success functions, then use AI and automation to invent new workflows and streamline tasks like lead-finding, account research, and demand generation. This role is increasingly vital as traditional sales tactics struggle to cut through crowded markets, and companies seek to leverage AI for greater efficiency and hyper-personalization.
The rapid succession of funding rounds and the doubling of its valuation from $1.5 billion just three months prior highlight Clay’s explosive growth and the surging investor appetite for AI companies. Clay’s revenue is on track to more than triple this year, serving over 10,000 customers globally, including prominent AI firms like OpenAI and fast-growing companies such as Canva.
CapitalG’s investment aligns with its strategy of backing growth-stage companies that are poised to make significant impacts, particularly within the AI ecosystem. According to Jane Alexander, a partner at CapitalG, and Will Noddings, a CapitalG investor, their extensive research into the evolving sales and marketing landscape led to a “deep conviction that Clay will become the de facto go-to-market platform for the AI era.” They emphasize that Clay offers a unified platform that allows revenue teams to launch campaigns with unprecedented precision and creativity, moving beyond the fragmented “Frankenstein’s monster” of disconnected tools that often characterize traditional sales and marketing tech stacks.
This investment not only signifies a major win for Clay but also points to a broader industry trend where AI is becoming indispensable for optimizing go-to-market strategies. The AI in marketing market alone is projected to reach $47.32 billion in 2025, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 36.6% to hit $107.5 billion by 2028. As businesses increasingly rely on AI to automate tasks, analyze vast customer data, and deliver hyper-personalized content, platforms like Clay are positioned at the forefront of this transformative shift. The funding will enable Clay to accelerate product development further, sharpening its platform for enterprise clients and solidifying GTM engineering as a mainstream career path.