AI is automating everything…except your next great idea. Nearly every repetitive task at work today is being automated. Code can be generated, emails drafted, financial reports analyzed. But one domain still resists full automation: creativity.
Creativity is messy, nonlinear, and deeply human. It’s the impulse to try something new, stand out from the crowd and break free from “the way things have always been done.” As software and AI increasingly automate the jobs to be done at work, creativity is quickly becoming the most differentiating and valuable mechanism of human input in the workplace.
We believe the next great software companies won’t just automate workflows—they’ll unlock human creativity. That’s why we’re thrilled to participate in the $100M Series C financing for Clay, a workspace where go-to-market (GTM) teams from iconic companies like Canva, OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, Figma and Rippling bring their most impactful and creative ideas for growth to life.
Rewriting the GTM Tech Stack
Every GTM team today feels the same tension. The old playbooks don’t work like they used to. Channels are crowded, buyers are harder to reach and the resulting patchwork of point solutions aimed at solving the problem has led to an increasingly expensive yet less effective GTM tech stack.
Clay enables GTM teams to cut through the noise by providing a creative tool for growth that combines 1) access to first-party and third-party data and signals, 2) a workflow tool for transforming raw data to power virtually any GTM campaign/process, and 3) integrations to GTM execution tools (e.g. CRM, MAP, SEP etc.). Want to run an ABM campaign with real-time personalized landing pages based on a prospect’s tech stack? Clay can coordinate that. Want to enrich CRM records with AI-powered research on company milestones? Clay makes that quick, easy, and accurate too.
But Clay isn’t just reinventing the GTM tech stack. They are fundamentally rethinking the GTM function from the ground up. For example, Clay has helped define a new role called GTM Engineering (GTME) which sits at the intersection of data, automation and GTM. GTMEs use Clay to run comprehensive enrichments, design workflow automations and orchestrate GTM campaigns. Hundreds of organizations have already posted GTME jobs to-date with companies like Cursor, Webflow and Lovable beginning to structure entire departments around this function.
In many ways, Clay is doing for GTM what Figma did for design: giving builders a flexible canvas to express the full extent of their creativity through new and novel ideas for targeting and engaging prospects.
From Data Enrichment to True Revenue Orchestration
Clay’s journey began by solving a universal pain point—data enrichment. GTM teams needed a better way to discover, unify, and clean data across dozens of enrichment data vendors in order to deeply understand their prospective buyer universe and determine who to reach out to, the right time to engage and the most effective messaging to deliver. Clay solved this with an elegant, out-of-the-box waterfall enrichment engine powered by 150+ integrations and a custom AI web research agent, all accessible via a powerful, connected spreadsheet-like UI.
But enrichment is really just the beginning in our opinion. Today, Clay is rapidly becoming the central operating layer for GTM teams—connecting GTM data and tools, proactively surfacing intent signals, and triggering downstream actions across the funnel. Teams use it to build prospect lists, segment audiences, personalize outreach, and orchestrate engagement across email, ads, direct mail, and websites.
The next generation of GTM teams are building their stack around Clay as the intelligent “AI Brain” for all growth.
The Founders Behind the Movement
Kareem Amin,
Co-founder + CEO, Clay
Behind Clay is one of the most exceptional founding teams we’ve met. We believe Kareem Amin, Clay’s CEO, is a true product visionary. He brings the precision of an engineer and the ingenuity of an artist. Before Clay, he was not only a product and engineering leader but also a music producer. It’s that same creative spirit that permeates across the product, the team, and the company’s culture–a force we felt immediately after meeting Kareem for the first time and walking the halls of Clay’s NY headquarters.
Varun Anand,
Co-founder & Head of Operations, Clay
Varun Anand, co-founder and COO, is Clay’s commercial engine. He moves with an urgency and empathy that is rare to find in one person. We first met Varun at our New York GTM Tech dinner and were struck by how he went beyond simply talking with Clay customers, but actually earned their trust and worked tirelessly to ensure their success in the Clay product.
Together, Kareem and Varun have cultivated a culture of creative, high-slope builders, technical thinkers and operators that continue to redefine how businesses accelerate GTM.
From Running the Playbook to Inventing the Plays
We believe Clay is ushering in a powerful shift, unleashing the full potential of human creativity to help GTM teams find alpha once again in an increasingly crowded market.
We’re honored to partner with Kareem, Varun, and the entire Clay team on this journey.
If you’re a RevOps leader, growth marketer, or someone who’s curious about how to drive growth—Clay is your new canvas. And we can’t wait to see what you create.
Legal disclaimer
This article is for informational purposes only. Nothing presented within this article is intended to constitute investment advice, and under no circumstances should any information provided herein be used or considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by Sapphire. Information provided reflects Sapphires’ views as of a time, whereby such views are subject to change at any point and Sapphire shall not be obligated to provide notice of any change. Companies mentioned in this article are a representative sample of portfolio companies in which Sapphire has invested in which the author believes such companies fit the objective criteria stated in commentary, which do not reflect all investments made by Sapphire. A complete alphabetical list of investments made by Sapphire’s Growth strategy is available here. No assumptions should be made that investments listed above were or will be profitable. Due to various risks and uncertainties, actual events, results or the actual experience may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated in these statements. Nothing contained in this virtual event may be relied upon as a guarantee or assurance as to the future success of any particular company. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
