Gong.io Raises $20 Million in Series A1 Funding to Transform Sales Conversations
Platform pioneers new category of AI and Machine Learning to improve sales performance; optimizes over $1 Billion of revenue for thousands of salespeople
SAN MATEO, California and TEL AVIV, Israel, July 12, 2017 — Gong.io, the leading SaaS company in the fast-growing category of Conversation Intelligence for sales teams, today announced a $20 Million Series A1 round.
The investment round was led by existing investors Norwest Venture Partners and CheckPoint Co-Founder Shlomo Kramer. They were joined by new investors Wing Venture Capital and NextWorld Capital. Peter Wagner, Founding Partner at Wing Venture Capital, and Ben Fu, General Partner at NextWorld Capital, will join as Board Observers.
Serial entrepreneurs Amit Bendov and Eilon Reshef co-founded Gong.io in 2015. While managing some of the most successful hyper-growth start-ups, they realized that most companies don’t understand why their sales teams aren’t meeting their targets. Gong.io leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to dramatically change the way salespeople conduct calls. The company’s patented technology automatically records sales calls and video conferences, transcribes them, and then uses AI and machine learning to analyze hundreds of data parameters within each call. By analyzing sales call patterns and matching them to business outcomes, Gong.io provides actionable insights to salespeople and sales leaders so that they can improve their performance and win many more deals.
The new funding will further support Gong.io’s impressive growth. It has been more than doubling its revenue for four consecutive quarters and is already helping thousands of salespeople optimize more than $1 Billion of revenue at companies like Act-On, SalesLoft, Sisense, Greenhouse, and Zywave. The technological innovation and impact of its product were recently recognized by Gartner, which named Gong.io a 2017 Cool Vendor in CRM Sales.
“Hardly a year since our first sales and it clearly feels like we’re on a rocket ship. Conversation Intelligence is the biggest shift in sales since CRM was introduced,” said Amit Bendov, Gong.io CEO and Co-Founder. “We are humbled by the overwhelmingly positive customer feedback we’re receiving and are already working on a very ambitious product road map to continue the innovation. We will use the latest round of funding to hire dozens of developers and researchers to expand our product and to step up our sales, marketing, and support activities.”
Several investors commented about their decision to back Gong.io and its Conversation Intelligence platform:
“We have been very impressed with Gong.io’s rapid growth and stellar execution of their original vision and we are thrilled to increase our investment,” said Dror Nahumi, General Partner at Norwest Venture Partners. “Gong.io is taking a strong lead in a whitespace category that will grow.”
“The conversations a company has with its customers are strategic data assets that have been untapped for far too long,” said Peter Wagner, Founding Partner of Wing Venture Capital. “For the first time, Gong.io turns these customer conversations into productive intelligence resources with profound implications across the enterprise.”
“Gong.io is the perfect convergence of next generation SaaS, Big Data, AI and Machine Learning—applied to conversations that directly impact sales, the lifeblood of any company.” said Ben Fu, General Partner at NextWorld Capital. “We see Conversation Intelligence as the future of AI-powered sales and we’re excited to help Gong.io dominate this new enterprise category around the globe.”
About Gong.io
Gong is the #1 Conversation Intelligence platform for B2B sales. It helps sales teams improve their calls and demos and gives sales leaders insights into how well calls are being conducted. Gong records, transcribes, and analyzes sales calls using AI, helping the sales organization understand what works, and what doesn’t. Visit Gong.io for more information.
About Norwest Venture Partners
Norwest Venture Partners is a leading Silicon-Valley based VC and growth equity investment firm managing more than $6 billion in capital. Since inception, we have invested in more than 600 companies. We invest in early to late stage companies across a wide range of sectors with a focus on consumer, enterprise, and healthcare. We offer a deep network of connections, operating experience, and a wide range of impactful services to help CEOs and founders advance on their journey.
About Wing Venture Capital
Wing Venture Capital is the best-of-breed venture capital firm dedicated to early-stage, long-term company building in business technology. Wing emphasizes craftsmanship over volume, and engages deeply with founders to help them create companies that matter. The body of work of Wing’s award-winning team spans more than two decades and dozens of early-stage companies, 16 of which went on to achieve billion-dollar-plus outcomes following IPOs or acquisitions.
About NextWorld Capital
NextWorld Capital is an enterprise technology venture capital firm that invests in early-revenue stage startups and helps them grow into global leaders. We lead Series B/C and in-revenue Series A rounds and then accelerate growth with our unique Global Enterprise Platform. NextWorld is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in London and Paris. Visit nextworldcap.com for more information.
