Clari raises $35M for its AI-based sales platform, expands into marketing and supply chain management

Andy Byrne, the founder and CEO who is a repeat entrepreneur and has been involved in several exits , said the funding closed “definitely at an upround, and much bigger than we thought it was going to be,” but declined to give a number.When Clari first emerged from stealth in April 2014 , the idea of applying AI to solve pain points for non-technical people in organizations was a fairly nascent and still-novel concept.Second, Clari puts a lot of focus on its “Opportunity-to-Close (OTC) solutions” — a type of risk-analysis for salespeople and their managers to help them figure out which leads and strategic directly would be the most likely to produce sales.“Clari has fast become indispensable to many of the most successful sales teams, giving them visibility into their most important metrics: rep productivity, pipeline health, and forecast accuracy.”“The Clari team has leveraged its deep AI expertise to build a unique platform that surfaces predictive insights for sales reps, managers, and execs during the opportunity-to-close process,” said Brian Paul, MD at Tenaya Capital, in a statement.