Hightouch, a startup that enables sales, marketing, and customer service teams to synchronize data warehouses and other locations, has secured $80 million in Series C funding, catapulting its valuation to $1.2 billion. The funding round, led by Sapphire Ventures, includes participation from NVC, Amplify Ventures, ICONIQ Growth, Bain Capital Ventures, and Y Combinator.

The significant investment will be used to further develop Hightouch's technology, as well as for business development and hiring. This marks a substantial increase in the company's valuation, roughly doubling its valuation from its last round in 2023.

Hightouch's co-CEO, Tejas Manohar, who previously worked as an engineering manager at Segment, recognized the limitations of using APIs to improve integrations. He noted that asking customers to get data into Segment was an onerous task, particularly since data from warehouses was primarily used for analytics, not marketing purposes. This realization led Manohar to co-found Hightouch with Kashish Gupta and Josh Curl in 2019.

Hightouch has developed two primary products: its core customer data platform (CDP) and AI Decisioning. The CDP, launched in 2020, allows non-technical users and data scientists to utilize machine learning and other tooling to make data from data warehouses more accessible for marketing, sales, and customer service teams. The platform enables users to build personalization campaigns, loyalty programs, and sync data from data warehouses to over 250 tools, including major CRM and marketing platforms.

The AI Decisioning product, launched in August 2024, takes machine learning and automation a step further. This agentic AI product can be prompted with a specific goal, running multiple experiments and tests to suggest optimal campaigns. The AI Decisioning product has seen significant interest from customers, including existing clients like Spotify, PetSmart, Tripadvisor, and Grammarly, as well as new business generated by the product's rollout.

According to Manohar, companies are increasingly interested in leveraging AI to provide better customer experiences and increase lifetime value and revenue. The AI Decisioning agents can "run thousands of experiments to figure out the best experience to deliver," he explained. This shift in motivation marks a maturation of AI adoption, moving beyond simply "doing things faster" to focusing on delivering enhanced customer experiences.

Hightouch's previous funding rounds include a seed round in 2020 from Y Combinator and others, a $40 million round led by ICONIQ Growth, and a $38 million round in 2023. With this latest investment, Hightouch is poised to continue revolutionizing the data synchronization landscape, empowering sales, marketing, and customer service teams to make more informed, data-driven decisions.

As the company continues to grow and develop its technology, it will be interesting to see how Hightouch's innovative approach to data synchronization shapes the future of customer experience and revenue growth. With its significant valuation and growing customer base, Hightouch is undoubtedly a startup to watch in the coming years.