Highspot became the latest Seattle-area unicorn following a Series E that valued the firm at $2.3 billion. The Sales Enablement platform, which was launched nine years ago by three former Microsoft employees, closed on a $200 million round led by Tiger Global Management. Bain & Company, CONIQ Growth, Madrona Venture Group, OpenView, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and Shasta Ventures also participated.
“Sales enablement is about more than sales. It connects everyone from marketing and sales to post-sales in delivering a unified buying experience that wins, retains and expands customer relationships,” said Robert Wahbe, CEO, Highspot. “Scaling your go-to-market strategy is a complex process with a large gap between strategy and action. We close this gap. Our single, unified platform improves sales performance by turning strategy into successful execution.”
Customers have deployed the Sales Enablement Platform for sales onboarding, ongoing training, content management, guided selling, rep coaching, engagement intelligence, and 360-degree analytics. They include DocuSign, General Motors, John Deere, Nestle, and Verizon Media,
The firm has over 500 employees in Seattle, London, and Munich. It plans to open an office in France and enter the APAC market in 2021. In May 2020, it opened up a Munich office to support its D-A-CH operations. Highspot doubled its EMEA revenue in 2020.
Highspot supports users in 125 countries.
Highspot does not disclose its revenue but told Bloomberg that ARR increased 900% over the past three years.
Last year, Highspot connected over three million salespeople, channel partners, services reps and customers in digital sales experiences, with usage double that of 2019. Highspot’s community of sales enablement professionals, Sales Enablement PRO, reached 13,000 members.
“Salesforce changed sales 20 years ago. Marketo changed marketing 10 years ago. Now, Highspot’s vision is to fundamentally change the way companies go to market,” said John Curtius, Partner, Tiger Global Management. “Highspot’s secret is an authentic commitment to people – their employees, customers and partners – that inspires a tremendously collaborative and resilient culture. We believe they’re capable of sustaining unmatched levels of innovation to achieve their vision.”
“There’s a famous Harvard Business Review article that 70% of strategic initiatives don’t work. Sometimes it’s not because the strategy isn’t right, it’s because they can’t translate it to the actions taken every day by their frontline sales team. We allow them to do that.”
Highspot CEO Robert Wahbe
The new funding will “accelerate platform development, including deeper insights into go-to-market strategy and execution offered through Highspot’s industry-only Scorecards.”
HighSpot also plans to grow its partner ecosystem, expanding its sales methodology training partnerships, technology partners, and Sales Enablement PRO community.
To fuel its growth, Highspot is hiring across “every business function.”
“Over the past year, sales enablement has emerged as a strategic imperative,” said Mark Kovac, Head of Bain & Company’s Global B2B Commercial Excellence Practice. “Companies that have built world-class enablement teams and technology are managing change and uncertainty at scale, while others struggle with agility and inconsistent performance. We believe Highspot’s differentiated approach will become the foundation upon which modern businesses achieve consistent revenue growth and market share gains.”