Clay company profile: valuation, funding & revenue

This Clay company profile covers the company's valuation, revenue, funding rounds, investors and history. Clay works in sales and marketing software, with a focus on data enrichment and AI for go-to-market teams. It was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in New York, New York, United States. Its latest valuation on record is US$7.1 billion (September 2026). Every figure links to a public source, and anything the company hasn't disclosed is marked as such.

Revenue

US$100 million ARR reached in December 2025; revenue grew about 3.5x in 2025 — ARR (company-reported), as of December 2025. Source: Clay.

Funding history

Clay timeline

Key dates from the sources on this page, oldest first. Metric snapshots are listed after the funding events.

• 2017 — Clay is founded in New York by Kareem Amin (CEO) and Nicolae Rusan.
• Aug 2025 — Series C: US$100M, valuing the company at US$3.1B.
• Jan 2026 — Employee tender offer: Up to US$55M, valuing the company at US$5B. Investors: DST Global (lead); Conviction, Avra, Operator Collective, Frontline.
• Sep 2026 — Series D: US$115M, valuing the company at US$7.1B. Investors: Wellington (lead); Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz.
• January 2026 — Customers: About 14,000 customers; enterprise net revenue retention above 200%.

Investors

Overview

Clay is a platform that sales, marketing and growth teams use to find, research and reach potential customers. It pulls data from more than a hundred providers, such as company databases, contact data vendors, job postings and websites, into a spreadsheet-like workspace, then uses AI agents to research each prospect, write personalised messages and send the results into a CRM or email tool. Instead of buying one data vendor's list, teams combine many sources to build more accurate, more targeted lead lists.

Clay was founded in 2017 by Kareem Amin, the CEO, and Nicolae Rusan. It started with a broader vision of making programming accessible to non-engineers and found its fit with go-to-market teams around 2022. The company is based in New York and had about 300 employees in early 2026.

How teams use Clay

A typical workflow looks like this. A team defines its ideal customer, for example software companies in Europe with 50 to 500 employees that recently raised money and are hiring salespeople. Clay finds matching companies, enriches each with data from several providers until it gets the information it needs, identifies the right contacts, checks email addresses, and uses an AI agent to research each company's news and write a tailored opening line. The output goes into tools such as Salesforce, HubSpot or an email sequencing platform. Our guide to building a B2B lead list describes the same process in general terms.

A whole profession has grown around the product: "GTM engineers" who build automated prospecting systems in Clay. Clay supports a community of agencies and user clubs around the world.

Business model

Clay sells subscriptions that include credits used for data lookups and AI actions. Larger customers pay more as they process more records and use more data providers. Because Clay buys data from providers and resells access, its margins depend on negotiating good terms. Usage-based pricing means customers who succeed tend to spend more, which shows in its unusually high net revenue retention.

Growth

In January 2026 Clay said its revenue had grown about 3.5 times in 2025, that it reached US$100 million in annual recurring revenue in December 2025, and that it had been cash-flow positive for parts of the year. It reported around 14,000 customers and enterprise net revenue retention above 200%, meaning existing enterprise customers more than doubled their spending in a year. Press reports later in 2026 cited higher run-rate figures; we use the company's disclosed number. Our guide to net revenue retention explains why that metric is so valued.

Funding and valuation

• Earlier tender offer: led by Sequoia at a US$1.5 billion valuation.
• August 2025, Series C: US$100 million at a US$3.1 billion valuation.
• January 2026, tender offer: employees could sell up to US$55 million of shares at a US$5 billion valuation, led by DST Global with Conviction, Avra, Operator Collective, Frontline and angel investors including executives from Stripe, Figma and Superhuman.
• September 2026, Series D: a US$115 million round at a US$7.1 billion valuation was reported.

Running two tender offers in nine months is unusual and signals that Clay prioritises liquidity for its employees.

Competitors

Clay competes with sales data platforms such as ZoomInfo, Apollo.io and Cognism, with sales engagement tools adding AI research, and with a wave of AI sales agent startups. It also partners with many data providers it could be seen as competing with. Its advantages are flexibility, its many data sources and a highly engaged community of power users.

Clay in brief

Clay is a New York go-to-market data platform founded in 2017 by Kareem Amin and Nicolae Rusan. It reached US$100 million in ARR in December 2025 after growing revenue about 3.5x that year, with about 14,000 customers. It was valued at US$3.1 billion in its August 2025 Series C, US$5 billion in a January 2026 tender offer and US$7.1 billion in a reported September 2026 Series D.

Why combining data sources works

No single B2B data provider has complete or fully accurate information. Coverage varies by country, industry and company size, and contact details go out of date quickly as people change jobs. "Waterfall enrichment", trying one provider, then another if the first has no answer, raises match rates and accuracy. Combining firmographic data with signals such as hiring, funding or technology changes also helps teams contact companies at the right moment. Our guide to intent data versus firmographic data explains these signal types.

Risks

• Data costs: rising prices from data providers could squeeze margins.
• Privacy rules: regulations such as GDPR limit how personal data can be used for outreach, especially in Europe.
• Email deliverability: as automated outreach grows, email providers tighten spam filters, which can reduce results for customers.
• Competition: CRM and sales platforms are building similar AI features into tools customers already pay for.

Teams that combine strong data with genuinely relevant messages, and contact fewer prospects more thoughtfully, tend to avoid most of these problems and get noticeably better reply rates as a result.

Latest developments (October 2026)

Clay announced a US$115 million Series D in September 2026 at a US$7.1 billion valuation, led by Wellington with participation from Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz, according to BetaKit and the company. That is more than double the US$3.1 billion valuation of its August 2025 Series C. Clay said it serves more than 17,000 customers, including 80% of the Forbes AI 50, and launched a US$1 million scholarship to train go-to-market engineers. This round supersedes the January 2026 tender offer valuation described earlier on this page.

What to track

Watch for confirmed ARR milestones, enterprise adoption, new AI agent products, further tender offers or funding, and how regulation of automated outreach develops.

Advice by role

Sales and marketing leaders can pilot Clay on a narrow segment and measure reply and meeting rates against their current lists. Founders can learn from how Clay built a community of expert users who effectively market the product. Investors should watch whether high retention continues as the customer base broadens.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from the public sources below. Where sources disagreed, we used the company's own announcement or a primary news report. Private-company data changes; check the date beside each figure.

1. BetaKit
2. Clay