Hubspot acquires Clearbit
The news of the week is unequivocally HubSpot's acquisition of Clearbit.
The rationale for helping marketers implement a first-party data strategy is clear. However, this deal also signals a significant shift in the SalesTech and CRM landscape that merits further examination.
Clearbit provides contact and account data, mostly known for enrichment and website tracking. But make no mistake, it's a comprehensive B2B database - 44 million companies, 350 million contacts, and 100+ attributes.
This isn't the first CRM-data combo. In 2010, Salesforce acquired crowdsourced data provider Jigsaw. It created the Data.com service but ended up terminating it in 2019 over data quality concerns. Since then, CRM giants have mostly opted to partner rather than provide data, with Oracle's 2018 Datafox purchase being the exception. Up until recently, data and workflows were considered separate businesses.
But the combination made sense. ZoomInfo's founder and CEO Henry Schuck has long preached that CRM without data is an empty shell. His company has been acquisitive and bought several workflow companies. However, it has been leveraging its super-efficient GTM machine to funnel additional products to the market rather than fusing the two types of products.
The internet lowered barriers to entry for assembling B2B databases. Startups have taken stabs at combining data and workflows but with mixed success, like Growlabs which launched in 2016 before being acquired by NextRoll two years later.
Times are changing though. Account-based platforms like 6sense and Demandbase made strategic data acquisitions. The standout is Apollo.io, approaching $100M in revenue and showing the combination of data and workflows can thrive.
What sets HubSpot's deal apart? AI.
All major platform providers are reevaluating their offerings and exploring how to incorporate data to fuel the effectiveness of their AI. HubSpot has been at the forefront, aggressively incorporating AI into its suite. The addition of Clearbit gives their platform a substantial boost.
The race is on, and it will be fascinating to see how the historical divide between data and workflow evolves.