SalesTech consolidators: Clari
Founded in 2012 by serial entrepreneur and visionary Andy Byrne, Clari has emerged as an important force in sales technology. It pioneered the pure-play forecasting solutions market, securing an enviable leadership position.
Though easy to pigeonhole as a RevOps specialist, Clari takes a holistic view of revenue. They see sales as a never-ending 13-week cadence. The challenge in this process? It hinges on week-long sequences of daily calls with sales teams constantly leaping between CRM systems, spreadsheets, and business intelligence tools, juggling data updates, reviews, and deal forecasts. Clari aptly dubs this conundrum the "three-headed hydra." To slay it, they introduced the Revenue Database (RevDB), a centralized data warehouse consolidating deal-related information from CRMs and other revenue systems.
Clari burst onto the scene in 2014, unveiling an AI forecasting solution harnessing data from various systems and machine learning to predict deals. It created a new experience for what it calls the "golden triangle" of the revenue process - reps, managers, and executives:
Managers gained improved visibility into deal progress, removing blind spots, and allowing them to coach and allocate resources effectively.
It simplified activity capture and opportunity updates, making life easier for reps and giving them specific guidance to close deals faster.
It brought confidence to executive teams with precise forecasts and transparency into the opportunities that would close and why.
Clari's ambition is to run not just forecasting, but all revenue workflows from RevDB. This approach transforms revenue operations into a repeatable, streamlined process.
Clari grew rapidly, reaching 1,500 customers and 800 employees this summer. The $500M it raised enabled a few acquisitions. DealPoint added buyer feedback via mutual action plans. Wingman brought call recording and conversation intelligence. In August, it acquired Groove, the sales engagement specialist.
These acquisitions bolstered a broad suite of applications:
Clari Forecast (sales forecasting)
Clari Inspect (deal intelligence)
Clari Capture (sales activity capture)
Clari Align (mutual action plans & digital sales rooms)
Clari Engage (sales engagement)
Clari CoPilot (conversation intelligence & coaching)
Looking ahead, Clari aims to help enterprises implement revenue collaboration and governance. Governance ensures a repeatable process, while collaboration unites revenue teams. RevDB is at the heart of this vision by providing a comprehensive view and transparency into all revenue activities.