Clay
Updated 2026-10-02GTM data and agent workflow platform built for GTM engineers, used by Anthropic, OpenAI, and Stripe. Raised a $115M Series D at a $7.1B valuation in September 2026. Recent releases: the API, CLI, and Agent Plugin, an email Sequencer, and Workflows.
Three scores, refreshed weekly from live market signals rather than a once-a-year analyst report. Presence is how established a vendor is in the market right now. Velocity is how fast they are shipping, raising, and winning customers. Agent Readiness is how easily your own agents can build on them through an API, MCP server, SDK, or CLI. Scores are relative across the vendors we track; the raw inputs ship in the downloadable dataset.
The Solution & Approach
Clay started in 2017 as a programmable spreadsheet and became the enrichment tool of choice for outbound teams. It now describes itself as "Infrastructure to get any data, run agentic workflows, and launch GTM plays." The 2026 releases moved it from rows to systems. Audiences replaced the 50,000-row table ceiling with a data layer that refreshes on its own. Workflows added a node-based orchestration canvas. Account Research Agents write findings back to the CRM. Claygent, its research agent, has passed 5 billion cumulative runs.
The distribution bet is to meet users inside other tools. Clay runs in ChatGPT, Claude, Codex, Microsoft Copilot, and Glean. Its API, CLI, and Agent Plugin let coding agents build and run Clay workflows from the terminal. That answers a real threat. Practitioners such as Brendan Short have described early Clay power users moving their work into Claude Code.
Clay also shapes the vocabulary around the GTM engineer, a role it is widely credited with creating. It runs the AlphaForge bootcamp, a GTM Talent Hub, the Clay Cup competition, and a $1,000,000 scholarship fund for people training into the role. For AEO work, Clay is a build option rather than a dedicated tool. It has published its own SEO and AEO playbook run on Clay.
Best for
GTM engineering and ops teams that want to build their own data, research, and outbound systems on one enrichment and orchestration layer instead of buying a packaged tool.
Pricing & trial
Credit-based self-serve pricing with a free plan ($0, no card required), Launch at $167 a month, Growth at $446 a month, and custom Enterprise, with 10% off for annual billing. Pricing.
Agent Experience
How you build on this platform (or wire it into your own agents):
One of the strongest build-on-top options in GTM: an API, a CLI, an MCP server on all modern plans, and an Agent Plugin that lets Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor search data, run Functions, and build Workflows without opening Clay.
Reference customers
Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Stripe, ElevenLabs, Visa, Siemens, UPS, Uber, Canva, Notion, Figma, Cursor, Ramp, Intercom, Rippling, HubSpot, Slack, Pendo, Verkada.
Case studies & customer stories
- Pendo surfaced about 13,000 top-fit accounts in two days for a multi-product AI launch source
- Anthropic's Eleanor Dorfman uses Clay to enrich and score every inbound lead source
- depthfirst cut Google Ads cost per lead 40% with Clay Ads source
- Verkada's Cody Leovic on first-party signals as a GTM moat source
- Clay Ads 2.0 launch, with Northbeam driving 5x SQLs from Clay-built lookalikes source
Recent moves
- 2026-09-24Published nine internal workflows built on its Agent Plugin, eight of them tied to specific GTM roles. source
- 2026-09-22Had Claygents submit 6,346 demo and contact forms and found only 32% got an email reply and 96% of companies never called. source
- 2026-09-18Head of GTM Engineering Everett Berry left Clay to work at a Clay customer. source
- 2026-09-17Opened Audiences, Account Agents, Workflows, the API and CLI plugin, and Sequencer to legacy Starter, Explorer, and Pro customers through year end. source
- 2026-09-15Made its API and CLI officially available, installed by pasting one sentence into Claude, Codex, or Cursor. source
- 2026-09-11Launched a $1,000,000 Community Scholarship to fund GTM engineer training. source
Company, Financials & Funding History
Founded in 2017 in New York by Kareem Amin (CEO) and Nicolae Rusan as a programmable spreadsheet; Varun Anand joined as co-founder in 2021. It took more than six years to reach $1M in ARR and about two more to pass $100M in December 2025.
| Date | Round | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-09 | Series D | $115M (Wellington), $7.1B valuation, with Sequoia, a16z, CapitalG, and Meritech participating |
| 2026-01 | Employee tender | $55M secondary (DST Global), $5B valuation, no new primary capital |
| 2025-08 | Series C | $100M (CapitalG), $3.1B valuation |
| 2025-05 | Employee tender | $20M secondary (Sequoia), $1.5B valuation |
| 2025-01 | Series B extension | $40M (Meritech), $1.25B valuation |
| 2024-06 | Series B | $46M (Meritech), $500M valuation; announcement also disclosed a prior $13.5M Series A (Sequoia) |
| 2017-06 | Seed | $2.5M (First Round Capital) |
Analyst placement
Named to the Forbes AI 50 again in April 2026, the only GTM company on the list by Clay's account. Ranked #3 on Brex's Spring 2026 list of fastest-growing software vendors by spend (May 2026).