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The Story Behind Salesloft’s $1.1B Valuation and $100M Raise

Published: January 6, 2021

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Authored by Kyle Porter, Salesloft CEO

Salesloft customers, this one's for you.

Because of your success and the trust you put in us, I have the privilege of announcing Salesloft has just closed a $100M capital raise at a $1.1B valuation.

The reason we’re different is because you educate us and allow us to serve you. You push us to go farther and inspire us to be bolder. You share in our vision and partner with us to achieve it.

The Rise of the Sales Engagement Market

From my early childhood introduction to sales, I knew this profession was special. I was drawn to the opportunity to impact others and generate commerce.

As I progressed in my career I learned a fundamental truth about sales organizations. They were consistently caught between two opposing forces. On one hand, you want your buyer to feel special, to have an amazing experience in their interactions with you. On the other, you need a scalable process in order to maximize revenue and repeat delivery of that experience.

CRMs were the new kid on the block at the time. But they were essentially databases that could not solve this problem. They didn’t facilitate multi-channel customer communication, provide coaching, or drive workflow - all things vital for next generation revenue production.

We saw that gap and vowed to close it. You guided us as we doggedly pursued creating a better solution. That’s how we, together, created what’s now the category of Sales Engagement.

Existing Trends... Meet COVID

2020 arrived and brought with it a global pandemic. Companies who were trying to get digital transformations off the ground for the past decade were forced to pivot and go fully remote, ready or not.

Going digital brought with it convenience but also highlighted inefficiencies. Process, accountability, and intelligence became even more difficult and more important.

At Salesloft, we experienced this as well. We had to transition to fully remote at a minute’s notice. It was an opportunity to immerse ourselves in our own best practices. And since then, our sales cycles have shortened by 40% and we’ve exceeded our growth plans. Many of our customers are experiencing similar results.

As with all hot markets, there are many players and new entrants every day. But not all Sales Engagement platforms are created equal. We are different. We have an unparalleled obsession with your success and deliver an entirely unique product strategy.

How and Why Salesloft Is Different

These are the core products that are necessary for digital sales:

Most other Sales Engagement providers only offer the first or the second solution. Our strategy is different.

That’s why our platform has all of these components.

We deliver a better experience to our customers for two reasons. First, they want one great partner they can trust - as one of our customers put it “can you imagine going through legal, data privacy, security, technical configuration, onboarding, and success four separate times?”

Second, our platform comes with a lot more than software. Digital selling is a big change for organizations. You taught us the best companies want a partner to shepherd them through change management, strategy, and integrations and that you want to work with the subject matter experts.

To our delight, many companies agree. More than 60% of Salesloft customers bought the full platform package this year.

Why Raise?

Fundraising wasn't part of our plan this year. We didn't need to take an investment. But we found an opportunity to partner with a world class investor in Owl Rock Capital. This lets us accelerate investments in product innovation, scale our enterprise business, and expand into new vertical markets and geographies. Now we can make our customers even more successful, which is our apex priority.

People's Champ

Nothing is more important to me than feedback from our customers. That’s why I read every NPS comment. I read all Salesloft submissions on G2. And I’m not the only one. We do this because we know feedback from you, people who use our product every day, is our not-so-secret weapon. And you haven’t steered us wrong yet.

On G2 alone, companies looking to transform will find more than 2,200 independent reviews from our real users voicing their unfiltered experience with Salesloft. I’m honored you continue to rank us as the number one provider since G2 started tracking the category (10 quarters in a row!) You say we are faster to implement, deliver higher adoption, drive quicker ROI, and offer higher customer satisfaction than all other providers.

This feedback directly aligns with TOPO (Gartner’s) top reasons leaders selected their current Sales Engagement provider. And, finally, Forrester officially recognized the category this year with the first The Forrester Wave™: Sales Engagement, Q3 2020. I’m proud to say Salesloft received the highest score possible in eight criteria, including a 5/5 in the customer performance criterion.

So again, to our customers and our partners: THANK YOU. Thank you for providing us with this momentum. We will keep it up and won’t let you down. You deserve the very best. We could not be more excited about spending this investment on your success. Your voice means the most. Our Lofters and I know the company who cares most about your success will help you win better than anyone else. That company is Salesloft.

Scroll down to read the press release.

With #saleslove,

Kyle

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Salesloft Valued at $1.1 Billion After $100 Million Equity Investment

Company’s growth fueled by industry leading customer success, market transforming innovation, and award winning culture

Atlanta, GA - January 6, 2021 – Salesloft, provider of the #1 Sales Engagement platform, today announced it has raised $100 million at a $1.1 billion valuation, bringing total funding to $245 million. Owl Rock Capital led the round with participation from Insight Partners, HarbourVest, and Emergence.

Since last year’s fund raise, the company has more than doubled recurring revenue and established themselves as the only complete provider of Sales Engagement in the market. Salesloft was named a leader in Sales Engagement in “The Forrester Wave™: Sales Engagement, Q3 2020", having the highest scores possible in eight criteria.

The Sales Engagement market is growing at a historic pace, fueled by the transformation to digital selling and has attracted nearly half a billion dollars in funding in the last 6 months.

Salesloft was recently ranked as the #1 Sales Engagement provider on G2 for the 10th consecutive quarter. According to customer reviews, Salesloft is faster to implement, delivers higher adoption, drives faster ROI, and offers higher customer satisfaction than other top-rated platforms.

“Our goal is and always will be to help our customers win,” said Kyle Porter, CEO Salesloft. “This year has accelerated the need for revenue teams across all industries to transform through a digital selling strategy. Salesloft is a crucial technology for sales teams to perform at their highest potential.”

Salesloft’s customers include tech giants such as Google, LinkedIn, Slack, Shopify, Dell, and Cisco, as well as industry leaders 3M, Cargill, and S&P.

The recent launch of Coach to Close highlights the company’s unique approach as the only platform integrating the three most critical solutions for digital selling - Cadence for building pipeline and managing customer communications, Conversations for analyzing call recordings and meetings, and Deals for managing opportunities.

“We know which sales activities lead to the best revenue outcomes,” continued Porter. “Our data science team is bringing insights and best practices into the platform to tee up next best actions and benefit our customers.”

Salesloft will use this funding to continue transforming the sales industry and helping the world's companies sell more successfully. This includes investing in new vertical markets, AI / ML-driven insights and product innovation, and further international expansion.

In addition to being ranked the highest in customer satisfaction, Salesloft is committed to excellence in organizational health and being a top place to work. The company has won many accolades for its culture, including:

3 time #1 Best Place to Work in Atlanta
#6 Best Places to Work by Glassdoor
Inc Best Workplaces 2020
#10 Best Company Culture by Comparably
Great Place to Work by Fortune