Sequoia leads $1.5B tender offer for sales automation startup Clay

It took seven years of hard work for Kareem Amin, co-founder and CEO of sales automation startup Clay, to see the company’s product finally take off in 2022. Since then, the startup has experienced explosive growth, reached a valuation exceeding a billion dollars, and expanded its employee count from low double digits to over 200.

Despite the team’s average short tenure at the company, Amin made a rare decision: Clay is allowing employees who have at least a year of tenure to sell some of their shares at a relatively high share price to one of its existing investors, Sequoia. It’s a win for everyone. The employee tender offer values the company at $1.5 billion, up from the $1.25 billion it secured in its Series B funding in January. Sequoia, an investor in Clay since its 2019 Series A, has agreed to purchase up to $20 million in employee stock.

Startup employees often trade lower pay for a bet on the company’s future, Amin told TechCrunch. “Most of the startups don’t work out, but Clay is working out, and so we wanted to make sure that they have the option of liquidity.”

According to Amin, both current employees and former employees are eligible to sell a specific portion of their equity, typically equivalent to about one year’s salary.

Alfred Lin, a partner at Sequoia and Clay board member, sees Amin’s and co-founder Varun Anand’s decision to offer company-wide participation in the startup’s financial success as another sign of Clay’s uniqueness.

“Clay is a very creative place,” Lin said. The startup’s technology helps salespeople and marketers find the right data and automate their go-to-market strategy with AI. Clay’s tools are used by thousands of customers, who range from large companies like OpenAI, HubSpot, and Canva, to over 100 small consulting agencies that help other businesses use Clay for their go-to-market efforts.

The company hasn’t taken its loyal community of customers for granted. In February, Clay gave the option to its direct users to participate in its growth by allowing its community members around the world to invest in the startup at the same valuation offered to its Series B investors. Clay raised about $1 million in a community round so its customers could directly share in its growth, Amin said.

Amin views the tender offer and the community round as a demonstration for Clay’s employees and direct customers that building the company is a collective effort: a way, as he put it, to ensure “the gains don’t just accumulate to a few people.”

While the tender will help current and former employees cash out some of their shares, allowing them a degree of financial freedom, Amin and Anand don’t plan to sell any of their shares in the offering.

For Sequoia, the tender is an opportunity to increase its stake in Clay, reflecting the firm’s confidence in the company’s potential.

However, Lin believes that many Clay employees won’t be too eager to sell a lot of their stock now because they expect their shares to be worth much more in the future. “There is probably going to be less than $20 million in demand, which is sad for Sequoia because we’d like to buy more.”

And if employees don’t sell some of their shares now, there will likely be another opportunity in the future. Amin said Clay is growing so quickly that he would like to launch tender offers annually.

Amin hopes the company’s tender will set a trend, inspiring other startups to offer employee liquidity as well.