More business is being carried out online because of Covid-19. To meet that opportunity, a startup called Apollo.io has built an all-in-one sales intelligence and engagement platform to find sales prospects from a database of 220 million would-be buyers.
This is a Series C and it is being led by Sequoia Capital, with previous backers Tribe Capital, and New View Capital also participating. Apollo's CEO and co-founder Tim Zheng said the company was not revealing its valuation with this round, but that it was $910 post closing. We are asking Apollo to confirm the figure and will update when we have more information.
The funding comes after a period of strong growth for Apollo. Over 160,000 companies are using its sales tools, working out to around 1 million individuals, according to Zheng. The company said it has seen a rise in its paying segment since the Series B was launched in November. It works out to less than 10% of the total user base, but it is moving in the right direction.
Apollo's rise and this funding round are notable case studies in how companies that have built effective tools can grow under challenging circumstances. Covid-19 heralded a shift to more business being done virtually, lending more credibility to online channels and generating a lot more demand for tools like Apollo.
Apollo, which had its start as a product called ZenProspect, which was incubated at Y Combinator and found strong early traction, was not the only one in what has become. Competitors include SalesLoft, Cognism, Reply.io, ZoomInfo, HubSpot and Outreach, among many others, delivering either more focused point-solutions or an all-in-one experience covering different aspects.
Apollo's pitch is that it is providing a more compelling product to the market on a couple of levels.
The product is an exercise in big-data analytics, giving users intel on who to target at which company, who might match best with what the salesperson is selling. Apollo is trying to make this an all-in-one product for those customers so that they can make one purchasing decision and use a single platform to run their sales processes, with tools to source prospects, design and run campaigns to target them and manage the sales process.
The company could potentially buy in or build even more tools to go further down the funnel. Tools that analyse phone calls in real time will prompt salespeople to tailor their pitch now and also in further pitches.
The company has shown resilience in its user numbers and wider business after a data breach.
The company discovered that its prospects database was stolen by hackers after a system upgrade exposed some vulnerabilities in its network. Apollo didn't provide details on what the data breach involved, but it did say that it involved some of its customers. Apollo said that the data was publicly available and that it was not sensitive, although it is still a bad look.
Today's funding round, valuation, and growth statistics seem to indicate that Apollo has done what it needed to in order to keep customers and investors on side.
Apollo.io simplifies the convoluted and manual processes of sales prospecting,ultimately, making smart, data-driven GTM simple and accessible to all, said Sonya Huang, a partner at Sequoia. We are very excited to partner with Apollo to help every company reach its full potential.
We have asked Zheng for a more specific comment on the steps it has taken and will update this post when we hear more.
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