Highspot has joined the growing list of billion-dollar startups sprouting up in the Seattle area.
Seattle’s newest unicorn just raised a $200 million Series E round that values the 9-year-old company at $2.3 billion — more than double from when Highspot raised its most recent round in 2019.
Highspot’s enterprise software aims to help make salespeople more efficient, equipping its users with technology to improve how they have conversations with prospective buyers. Its “sales enablement platform” is a sales playbook of sorts, analyzing hoards of internally-produced information — historical data; marketing presentations; case studies; data sheets; etc. — and then applying AI to optimize the selling process.
Highspot also provides communication and analytics tools to anyone who interfaces with a customer, including customer service reps fielding technical questions.
Customers include Hootsuite, Twitter, Siemens, Workday, and others. Showpad and Seismic are some of Highspot’s top competitors.
The company said its annual recurring revenue has increased 900% over the past three years.
“Salesforce changed sales 20 years ago. Marketo changed marketing 10 years ago. Now, Highspot’s vision is to fundamentally change the way companies go to market,” said John Curtius, partner at Tiger Global Management — which led the round — said in a statement.
Bloomberg first reported the funding news.
Highspot is led by CEO Robert Wahbe, a former longtime employee at Microsoft, where he spent 16 years equipping sales teams with necessary information to help craft perfect pitches to potential customers. He founded the company with former colleagues with Oliver Sharp and David Wortendyke.
Highspot employs more than 500 people across Seattle, London, and Munich.
Seattle is now home to 11 unicorn startups, or those valued at $1 billion or more. Nine of the 11 Seattle-area unicorns have achieved their lofty valuations in the past 18 months. The majority operate in enterprise software or cloud computing. And seven startups have at least one active co-founder with Microsoft ties.
Total funding to date for Highspot is more than $400 million. New York-based Tiger Global has backed several recent rounds for fast-growing Seattle-area startups including Ally, Zenoti, and Flexe.
Bain & Co. also invested in the Series E round, as well as previous backers Salesforce Ventures and Madrona Venture Group.
