Highspot Raises $60M Series D Round Led by ICONIQ Capital
Technology Leader in Burgeoning Sales Enablement Category Is More Than Doubling Across Key Business Metrics
SEATTLE, June 4, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Highspot, the highest customer-rated sales enablement platform, today announced it has secured $60 million in Series D funding. ICONIQ Capital led the round, with participation from new investor Sapphire Ventures and all existing investors including Madrona Venture Group, OpenView, Salesforce Ventures and Shasta Ventures. The investment will fuel Highspot's global expansion and further extend its technology leadership in the sales enablement category. Highspot's revenue, customer base, existing customer expansion and employee count are all more than doubling year-over-year. Hundreds of companies are using the Highspot platform to empower customer-facing teams and partners, elevate the customer experience, and ultimately, accelerate revenue growth.
The gap between sales and marketing is a decades-old challenge that traditional technologies have failed to reconcile. SiriusDecisions reports, "65 percent of content produced by marketing for use by sales is never utilized." Highspot is uniting sales and marketing in delivering personal, relevant customer conversations. Highspot's platform combines sophisticated machine learning and intuitive user experience to define modern sales enablement. According to Gartner research: "By 2021, 15 percent of all sales technology investments will be applied to sales enablement technology, up from the 2017 level of 7.2 percent." (Gartner, "Market Guide for Digital Content Management for Sales", Guneet Bharaj, Theodore Travis, Melissa Hilbert, Todd Berkowitz, 16 October 2018)
"Enablement is the new customer battleground," said Highspot CEO Robert Wahbe. "Sales technology is moving toward a system of intelligence and collaboration. Now, more than ever, customer-facing teams need a system of truth for content and guidance. This is Highspot. We make our users trusted advisors to their customers, which is a real competitive advantage."
"Highspot epitomizes our focus on clear product leaders that can make a global impact," said ICONIQ Capital General Partner Matthew Jacobson, who is joining Highspot's Board of Directors. "They are poised to capitalize on several powerful trends including the growing importance of sales enablement as a critical pillar of the modern sales and marketing technology strategy."
Highspot's Hypergrowth Accelerates
The funding comes during a period of explosive company growth, with the strong performance prompting the lease of Highspot's new headquarters – a 55,000-square-foot space near the Seattle waterfront. The company will keep its existing Seattle offices, giving it capacity for 800 employees. Highspot also launched its EMEA operations earlier this year with the opening of its London headquarters.
Highspot continues to earn global recognition as both a top product and workplace. London's Sales Innovation Expo presented Highspot with the Best Sales Enablement Platform award, and the Stevie® Awards recognized Highspot as a winner for Customer Service Department of the Year. Highspot was also named to Glassdoor's 2019 Top 10 Best Places to Work and LinkedIn's Top 50 Startups lists, among others.
Defining Modern Sales Enablement
The Highspot solution is powered by the category's only patented artificial intelligence and machine learning technology. Sellers and marketers are armed with differentiating capabilities including:
- A first-of-its-kind approach to B2B content management where content is organized in Spots™ instead of a traditional file and folder structure
- The ability to create dynamic, mobile-ready sales playbooks and customize seller and buyer experiences using SmartPages™
- Intelligent content recommendations, semantic search and deep analytics powered by AI
- Broad range of technology integrations with leading products including Salesforce and Slack
About Highspot
Highspot gives businesses a powerful sales advantage to engage in more relevant buyer conversations and achieve their revenue goals. Through AI-powered search, analytics, in-context training, guided selling, and a broad range of technology integrations, the Highspot platform delivers enterprise-ready sales enablement in a modern design that sales reps and marketers love. With 90 percent average monthly recurring usage and global support in 125 countries, Highspot is the highest rated solution on G2 Crowd, Microsoft Store, Google Play and Apple AppStore.
About ICONIQ Capital
ICONIQ Capital is a privately-held financial advisory and investment firm, and a partner of choice for exceptional entrepreneurs, leaders and institutions around the world. The firm invests in technology growth equity, middle market buyout and real estate asset classes and employs a distinctive ecosystem to build enduring businesses. ICONIQ is a trusted advisor fostering meaningful strategic relationships across industries to source powerful ideas, magnify global impact and support a new generation of entrepreneurs and companies.
About Sapphire Ventures
Sapphire Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on helping innovative technology companies become global category leaders. Leveraging nearly two decades of experience and an extensive global enterprise network, Sapphire Ventures invests capital, resources and expertise to enable its portfolio companies to scale rapidly. Whether entrepreneurs sell to businesses, consumers or both, Sapphire Ventures offers a powerful platform for business development and operational excellence to help them accelerate growth. With $2.5 billion under management via direct growth investments and early-stage fund investments, Sapphire Ventures is positioned to elevate companies to the global stage.
About Salesforce Ventures
Salesforce is the fastest growing top five enterprise software company and the #1 CRM provider globally. Salesforce Ventures—the company's corporate investment group—invests in the next generation of enterprise technology that extends the power of the Salesforce Customer Success Platform, helping companies connect with their customers in entirely new ways. Portfolio companies receive funding as well as access to the world's largest cloud ecosystem and the guidance of Salesforce's innovators and executives. With Salesforce Ventures, portfolio companies can also leverage Salesforce's expertise in corporate philanthropy by joining Pledge 1% to make giving back part of their business model. Salesforce Ventures has invested in more than 300 enterprise cloud startups in 20 different countries since 2009. For more information, please visit www.salesforce.com/ventures.
Contact:
Elena Edington
206-817-4339
elena.edington@highspot.com
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