Clay
Clay is an AI-native go-to-market platform that unifies 150+ data providers, AI research agents (Claygent), intent signals, and orchestration into a single workflow environment for B2B sales, RevOps, and marketing teams at enterprises and startups.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2017
- HeadquartersNew York, United States
- Headcount501–1,000
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Clay does
Clay (legal entity: Clay Labs Inc.) is an AI-native go-to-market (GTM) development platform headquartered in New York City, founded in 2017 and operating under CEO Kareem Amin and co-founder Varun Anand. The company combines a 150+ provider waterfall enrichment marketplace, a proprietary AI research agent (Claygent, executing ~140M runs per month), a natural-language AI co-pilot (Sculptor), an intent and signals engine, a native email sequencer (Sequencer), code-based extensibility (Clay Functions), and a Model Context Protocol server (Clay MCP) that exposes its workflows to external AI assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Codex. Its core product surface is the Clay table, which unifies data, AI, signals, and orchestration into a single workflow environment used by sales, marketing, and RevOps teams.
Clay serves primarily B2B sales, RevOps, and GTM engineering personas across enterprise customers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Canva, Rippling, Intercom, Notion, Figma, Verkada), mid-market accounts (Vanta, Pendo, Hex, Merge), and a long tail of startups and SMBs, supported by a 40,000+ member community, Clay University, the annual Sculpt conference, and a certified Clay Studio Partner channel (demandDrive, Cobalt Keys). The company monetizes through tiered SaaS subscriptions (Launch at $185/mo, Advanced at $495/mo, custom Enterprise contracts), usage-based consumption on Data Credits and Actions, and partner-influenced revenue. Following its August 2025 $100M Series C at a $3.1B valuation, Clay reported approximately $100M ARR in December 2025, with net retention above 200%, and reached a $5B valuation via a January 2026 employee tender offer; the company is also expanding its Manhattan headquarters with a $50M R&D commitment and 498 new jobs.
Clay firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Clay
- Legal name
- Clay Labs Inc.
- Website
- https://clay.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2017
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 501–1,000 employees
- Short description
- Clay is an AI-native go-to-market platform that unifies 150+ data providers, AI research agents (Claygent), intent signals, and orchestration into a single workflow environment for B2B sales, RevOps, and marketing teams at enterprises and startups.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Where Clay is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- New York
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Clay business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations
Revenue model
- Subscription (SaaS tiers): Recurring monthly/annual subscriptions across Starter, Launch, Growth, and Enterprise tiers (e.g., $185/mo Launch, $495/mo advanced features), driving the bulk of ARR ($100M reported).
- Usage-based consumption (Data Credits / Actions): Consumption charges for data enrichment credits and automated actions (Claygent runs, emails sent, HTTP API calls), layered on top of subscription seats.
- Enterprise contracts: Custom-priced multi-year enterprise deals with SLAs, security review (SOC 2, ISO 27001), and dedicated support for large customers like OpenAI, Anthropic, Canva.
- Channel / partner-influenced revenue: Revenue generated through Clay Studio Partners (demandDrive, Cobalt Keys) who resell, implement, or expand Clay into end customers.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Monthly | Launch tier - mid-level plan for growing teams |
| Subscription | Monthly | Advanced / Growth tier with HTTP API and CRM integrations |
| Subscription | Multi-year contract | Enterprise - custom pricing |
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Starter / Free Trial - self-serve entry point |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | Usage-based consumption (Data Credits / Actions) |
Go-to-market motion5 records
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels8 records
Clay product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Clay is an AI-native go-to-market (GTM) development platform that combines 150+ data providers, AI research agents (Claygents), intent signals, and workflow orchestration into a single product. It enables sales, marketing, and RevOps teams to automate prospect research, lead enrichment, signal-based prioritization, and outbound campaigns through a unified table-based environment with API and AI assistant access.
Product overview
Clay is a single unified GTM development platform that brings together data enrichment, AI agents, intent signals, and orchestration in one product rather than a platform-plus-modules architecture sold separately. Its core surface is the Clay table, which combines Waterfall enrichment across 150+ data providers, Claygents for AI-led research, Signals and Intent for tracking buyer behavior, AI Formatting for cleaning records, and Clay Functions for reusable logic. On top of this core, Clay layers execution-oriented modules — Ads (LinkedIn/Meta/Google audience sync), Audiences (CRM + product + intent unification), Sequencer (native email outreach), Sculptor (natural-language co-pilot), Clay MCP (exposing workflows to external AI assistants), and Clay for Salesforce (Salesforce-native workflows). The company also operates sub-brands such as Clay University (education and certifications), Sculpt (its annual GTM conference), and acquired Avenue to embed intent-signal alerting. Together these products let GTM engineers build, test, and scale automated revenue workflows end-to-end.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Claygent: Clay's AI research agent that can search public databases, navigate gated forms, and find unique datapoints for GTM teams.
- Sculptor
- Sequencer
- Audiences
- Sculpt
- Clay University
- Clay Cup
Products and services
- Clay (GTM platform) AI-native go-to-market development environment that combines 150+ data providers, AI agents (Claygents), intent signals, and orchestration to turn growth ideas into automated GTM workflows; used by over 500,000 GTM teams and trusted by customers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Canva, Verkada, Rippling, Intercom, and Vanta.
- Clay University Education platform offering lessons, templates, cohort classes, support documentation, and a Clay Certification program recognized by the Clay ecosystem.
Quantifiable outcome
- ~$100M ARR at time of Series C
- +4 more outcomes
Companies that use Clay
Customer profileNamed customers31 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Clay technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration27 records
AI capability13 records
Feature8 records
Clay partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Nine partnerships are on record, tiered core and flagship.
- LushacoreData provider integrated into Clay's waterfall enrichment marketplace, supplying B2B contact and company data for prospect enrichment.
- demandDrivecoreClay Studio Partner that resells, implements, and runs outbound campaigns on behalf of clients using Clay.
- Cobalt Keys LLCcoreCertified Clay Studio Partner delivering Clay-powered GTM services and implementations to end customers.
- BetterContactcoreIntegration partner providing email verification and deliverability data within Clay's enrichment and outbound workflows.
- CB InsightscoreData partnership enabling Clay customers to access CB Insights market intelligence, company, and funding data inside workflows.
- OpenAIflagshipFrontier partner relationship: OpenAI models and APIs power Claygent and other AI features inside Clay, and OpenAI is also a customer.
- 2XflagshipAcquired The Kiln (now part of 2X), a Clay Studio Partner; deepens Clay's agency and implementation capacity in the GTM engineering ecosystem.
- OctavecoreIntegration partner providing intent / signal data that Clay customers use to prioritize accounts and contacts in outbound workflows.
- Apollo.iocoreMajor integration partner supplying contact, company, and intent data into Clay's enrichment waterfall and outbound workflows.
Scale indicators10 records
Recent moves3 records
Expansion highlights7 records
Clay competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- 6sense: 6sense is a leading ABM and intent data platform that competes with Clay's Signals/Intent and ABM use cases. Both vendors aggregate third-party intent and prioritize accounts, but 6sense is more incumbent in enterprise ABM while Clay emphasizes AI-agent-led orchestration.
- Bombora: Bombora is a leading intent data provider whose Company Surge data feeds many platforms, including parts of Clay's Signals/Intent stack. It competes indirectly with Clay via the intent data layer of the GTM stack.
- Cognism: Cognism is a B2B sales intelligence provider with strong EMEA-compliant contact data and intent signals, directly comparable to Clay's enrichment and outbound use cases. It targets overlapping RevOps and sales personas with a similar data-provider-plus-workflow proposition.
- Apollo.io: Apollo is a leading B2B sales intelligence and engagement platform with contact data, enrichment, and a built-in sequencer. It is the closest direct competitor to Clay, both as a data provider inside Clay's waterfall and as a competing end-to-end outbound platform for SDRs and RevOps.
- Lusha: Lusha provides B2B contact and company data enrichment and is integrated into Clay's waterfall. As a standalone product it competes with Clay for SDR prospecting budgets, particularly among mid-market and EMEA customers.
- Salesloft (formerly Drift): Salesloft is a sales engagement and conversation intelligence platform that overlaps with Clay's Sequencer and signal-based outreach. It is a primary competitor for enterprise sales-execution budgets where Clay's AI-agent layer is gaining traction.
- Outreach: Outreach is a sales engagement platform whose Sequencer competes with Clay's native Sequencer. Both target SDR/AE workflows with multi-step sequences, and Clay increasingly overlaps with Outreach in mid-market and enterprise outbound.
- Demandbase: Demandbase is an ABM and B2B advertising platform that overlaps with Clay's ABM and Ads modules. It targets similar enterprise GTM and marketing personas with account prioritization, advertising, and intent.
Broad incumbents
- ZoomInfo: ZoomInfo is the largest B2B contact and company data incumbent, offering enrichment, intent, and sales engagement. It competes with Clay in enterprise data enrichment and intent-driven outbound, but with a much broader portfolio and a different go-to-market (top-down enterprise).
- HubSpot: HubSpot is a CRM, marketing automation, and sales engagement incumbent that integrates with Clay for outbound workflows. It is a broad incumbent whose embedded AI features and Breeze agents increasingly encroach on Clay's enrichment and orchestration surface, especially in the mid-market.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat7 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights8 records
Customer concentration
Clay social profiles
Digital presenceClay compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance5 records
Clay financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Clay leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
Clay funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds8 records
Investors22 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Clay M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A1 record
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Clay
What does Clay do?
Clay is an AI-native go-to-market (GTM) development platform that combines 150+ data providers, AI research agents (Claygents), intent signals, and workflow orchestration into a single product. It enables sales, marketing, and RevOps teams to automate prospect research, lead enrichment, signal-based prioritization, and outbound campaigns through a unified table-based environment with API and AI assistant access.
Is Clay a public or private company?
Clay is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Clay founded?
Clay was founded in 2017. It employs 501 to 1,000 people.
Where is Clay based?
Clay is headquartered in New York, United States, in the North America region.
How does Clay make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Subscription (SaaS tiers) is the primary driver. The others are usage-based consumption (Data Credits / Actions), enterprise contracts and channel / partner-influenced revenue.
Who are Clay's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are 6sense, Bombora, Cognism, Apollo.io, Lusha, Salesloft (formerly Drift), Outreach and Demandbase. Broad incumbents are ZoomInfo and HubSpot.
Does Clay have an API?
Yes. Clay offers an HTTP API capability that allows users to build custom integrations without code for pushing enriched data to CRMs, email sequencers, data warehouses, ad managers, and CMS systems on a recurring basis. Clay also operates as an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server: Clay MCP makes ops-built workflows consumable by reps from within AI assistants. Clay is also available as a native connector inside Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT, allowing users to access Clay's contact databases, enrichment providers, and AI agents (Claygents) directly from those AI assistants. Clay MCP is also available in OpenAI's Codex for self-served data and ops-built workflows. Developer documentation is at university.clay.com/docs.