Israeli-Founded Startup Gong Raises $250M At $7.2B Valuation

Israeli-founded firm Gong, a revenue intelligence company that leverages AI to transform sales teams, announced on Thursday that it has raised $250 million in a Series E funding round led by US multinational holding company Franklin Templeton. Existing Gong investors also participated in the round including Coatue, Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia, Thrive Capital, and Tiger Global.

The round brings Gong’s total funding raised to $584 million to date. This funding comes on the heels of Gong’s Series D funding in August 2020, which the company says highlights the growing demand for its product and solutions. 

Founded in 2015 by Amit Bendov, CEO, and Eilon Reshef, chief product officer, Gong developed a platform that uses natural language processing and machine learning to improve sales and customer service.

Gong’s software helps companies make better decisions that are based on reality, not opinions. It automatically captures the full range of a company’s interactions with customers – via emails, web conference calls, phone calls, and more – reducing the risk of incomplete or data.  Gong then uses patented AI technology to understand what exactly is being said in these customer interactions. It helps companies uncover patterns and trends in the data, leading to insights that can help increase sales, reduce churn, and increase market share.

“Gong captures the full range of a company’s customer interactions, surfaces insights about markets, deals and employee skills, and recommends the next best steps to progress deals, ensure customer success, and win markets. This enables customer-facing professionals to make proactive decisions informed by unfiltered business reality instead of opinions,” a statement from the company said.

“Technologies aimed at optimizing productivity and customer satisfaction became more important than ever in the past year as the business world transitioned to a predominantly remote work model,” said Ryan Biggs at Franklin Templeton. “Once businesses experience Gong’s revenue intelligence, its value is undeniable. We believe this product has become a fundamental requirement for professionals looking to drive sales based on the true needs of customers.”

“Just as we predicted in 2015 when Gong began leveraging AI to understand the needs of customers, we experienced massive growth in the past year, proving revenue intelligence is a game changer for companies” said Amit Bendov, Gong’s CEO, “As professionals across the globe were forced to connect with customers remotely for the first time, they became even more reliant on data and insights to win the hearts and minds of their customers. Gong was no longer a luxury, but a necessity, and it’s become clear that our product, which makes recommendations based on reality, has the potential to change the way we all do business.”