Wellington Management leads $115 million investment in Clay

The New York sales automation startup secured fresh capital after reaching 14,000 enterprise customers and a $5 billion valuation earlier this year.

Clay closed a new financing round backed by Wellington Management to expand its automated go-to-market software, according to company fundraising disclosures.¹ The transaction represents the latest cash infusion for the New York-based software developer, which provides workflow systems that gather contact data and draft outreach campaigns for sales teams.²³

The investment follows rapid growth across the company's enterprise accounts and balance sheet over the past two years. Founded in Brooklyn, the business grew to employ more than 300 staff members while expanding its paying footprint to over 14,000 commercial customers worldwide.³ Those accounts include prominent technology businesses such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Canva, Intercom, and Rippling.²⁴

The company built its platform around an engine that ties external databases to artificial intelligence models. The system integrates with more than 150 third-party data providers, allowing software agents to research prospective buyers, track corporate executive transitions, monitor competitive product mentions, and draft customized outbound communications.²³ In certain deployments, the platform has also evaluated satellite imagery to generate market observations for commercial clients.²

Investor interest in the company escalated throughout 2025 and early 2026 as corporate adoption increased. Clay raised $100 million in a Series C round announced in August 2025 at a $3.1 billion post-money valuation.²⁴³ CapitalG, the independent growth fund of Alphabet, led that round, with capital from Sequoia Capital, Meritech Capital Partners, First Round Capital, BoxGroup, Boldstart, and Sapphire Ventures.²⁴ The Series C arrived six months after a $40 million Series B expansion round in January 2025 that valued the firm at $1.25 billion.³⁴

During that expansion, chief executive Kareem Amin framed the corporate mission around creating operational infrastructure for commercial growth teams. Amin described go-to-market engineering as "the first true AI-native profession," telling industry observers that automated tooling allows sales teams to coordinate complex data sourcing without requiring specialized computer science degrees.² In a statement released during the Series C financing, CapitalG partner Jane Alexander said Clay was "setting the bar for how leading organizations use AI for sales and marketing," pointing to operational reviews conducted with more than 100 enterprise sales leaders.²

Clay reported substantial revenue acceleration alongside those venture checks. Financial disclosures released by the company indicated that annual recurring revenue reached $100 million in December 2025, while net revenue retention within its enterprise segment remained above 200 percent.³ In an interview with The New York Times during the Series C raise, Amin said the company anticipated finishing 2025 with $100 million in annual revenue, an outcome that tripled its top-line performance from the previous year.⁴ The business also estimated that its ecosystem of 108 specialized consulting agencies was generating hundreds of millions of dollars in collective commercial billings, while directing $50 million in 2025 revenue to partner data suppliers.²

Prior to the Wellington Management transaction, existing shareholders had accessed equity sales through structured liquidity programs. In May 2025, Sequoia Capital led an initial employee stock tender offer totaling $20 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion.³⁴ Eight months later, in January 2026, investment firm DST Global led a secondary tender offer of $55 million.³ That transaction allowed staff holding vested equity to sell shares at an implied corporate valuation of $5 billion.³

Earlier backers supplied initial operational runway during the company's development period. First Round Capital led a seed financing of $2.5 million in June 2017 to establish the underlying product.³ Sequoia Capital subsequently led a $13.5 million Series A financing completed in 2023 and publicly disclosed in June 2024.³ Meritech Capital Partners led the firm's $46 million Series B round at a $500 million valuation in June 2024 before doubling down on the subsequent expansion.³

With Wellington Management backing the newest round, Clay joins a cohort of growth-stage technology firms commanding top valuations for automated enterprise systems. Enterprise sales operations continue to dedicate budget to software that can source prospective accounts, run outreach sequences, and enrich internal relationship records automatically.

Reporting note: this piece draws on reporting from The New York Times, Built In NYC, TechCrunch, and corporate disclosures published by Clay. The Primary news team conducted no independent interviews for this report.

Source: press release via The New York Times DealBook, September 9, 2026.

References

This article is based on 4 sources, listed in the order they are cited.

1. 1 N nytimes.com announcement · 9 Sep 2026 Clay Raises $115 Million for AI Sales Platform See the source
2. 2 BI Built In NYC third party · 8 Aug 2025 Clay Secures $100M to Expand AI-Powered GTM Engineering | Built In NYC See the source
3. 3 C clay.com How Much Did Clay Raise? Funding & Key Investors | Clay See the source
4. 4 T techcrunch.com third party · 5 Aug 2025 Clay confirms it closed $100M round at $3.1B valuation | TechCrunch See the source