Jason Zintak, Chief Executive Officer at 6sense shares his bold vision for the future of revenue technology.
From my time as a seller, and then revenue leader, CEO, and company advisor, I’ve seen first-hand again and again the poor communication, broken and flawed processes, and lack of a common set of metrics and measures that have plagued revenue teams.
Our own independent research backs up what I’ve experienced; sales and marketing teams waste a tremendous amount of time on unproductive activities instead of focusing on closing more business by engaging the right buyers at the right time. In fact, most frontline sellers tell us the prospects they’re working with are not an ideal fit, and more than half report negative responses when engaging with a prospect.
This is both a data and execution problem. One can’t be untethered from the other.
I’ve long believed there is a tremendous opportunity to solve this problem and move the sales and marketing technology world away from outdated tools, and usher in a new era of B2B platforms that will fundamentally change the way companies go to market. We’re already seeing account-based tech, sales tech, and legacy marketing tech categories beginning to converge into a massive market that will only continue to grow. I also believe 6sense is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this opportunity and deliver the transformation our industry is so hungry for.
That’s why, today, I’m excited to share the news that 6sense has closed a $125 million Series D funding round at a $2.1 billion valuation. New backers include D1 Capital Partners, Sapphire Ventures, and Tiger Global, and existing investor Insight Partners also participated.
What excites me the most about this investment is the hyper-jump we’ll be able to make towards achieving the vision that drew me to 6sense in the first place in 2017: A seismic shift to a unified go-to-market platform for the entire revenue team.
This is what the RevTech Revolution is all about.
It’s Time to Unify the Revenue Team
We’ve known it for years: When marketing and sales are aligned, good things happen. Research from Forrester (SiriusDecisions) shows annual company revenue and brand awareness increase by more than eight percent — and average deal size increases by more than six percent — just when teams are aligned.
Our customers are seeing even greater results when those unified teams focus on accounts identified by 6sense’s patented intent-based prediction model, including a 35% increase in average deal value, 20% improvement in opportunity conversion rate, and a 20% reduction in deal cycle time.
The misalignment problem seems simple enough to solve. Get the people, processes, and technology aligned around a common, trusted source of data; and drive accountability by measuring everyone on a common set of outcomes.
And yet, the problem remains unsolved.
This has resulted in different parts of the revenue team “optimizing” their way further into both data and functional silos. The martech landscape is teeming with micro-solutions for every nagging problem the marketing automation platform vendors aren’t able to solve (or they themselves created). Sales tech is no different. Your CRM wasn’t built to facilitate decision making; it was built to store records. Add RevOps and customer success teams into the mix, and the people, process, and technology alignment challenges grow exponentially, as more data becomes siloed and disconnected from execution.
At 6sense, we’ve been on a mission to fundamentally change the way revenue teams go to market and achieve success, with both our technology and an account-based mindset.
The innovation we’ve been able to deliver to date is a direct result of our history and expertise in big data (and the hard work of mastering, cleansing, and de-duplicating), AI, and machine learning, all of which make 6sense uniquely different from current sales and marketing technologies. Today, the 6sense platform relies on that foundational core to uniquely match buying signals to accounts more accurately than any other solution, deliver AI-powered predictions for account fit and timing, and help revenue teams execute across every channel.
This is what we’re delivering every day for our customers. Now it’s time to accelerate our vision.
What’s Ahead for RevTech
Our vision has always been bigger and bolder than merely leading the account-based sales and marketing category, and we see enormous opportunity in rethinking the way B2B companies go to market — using data, insights, and AI-driven predictions uniquely derived from 6sense.
The 6sense platform will bring together the best of marketing, sales, RevOps, and customer success capabilities, on top of a common big data and AI-powered orchestration layer, allowing organizations to marshal the full potential of the RevTech stack.
Think of it this way: RevTech = comprehensive B2B go-to-market with data, insights, and orchestration capabilities at the core. 6sense = the B2B go-to-market platform that makes it possible.
For 6sense, this means accelerating our already aggressive product roadmap, including expanding our robust data layer, continuing to leapfrog the market with our predictions capabilities, and scaling our AI-based orchestration capabilities to deliver ideal customer journeys at scale based on real-time data and insights.
For our market, today represents a sea change; a recognition that the old ways of doing things are simply not working and revenue teams are ready for more.
My Promise
As CEO, I believe we have the platform, data, team, investment partners, and most importantly, passionate, loyal customers who are all-in on helping 6sense become the foundation for B2B revenue insights and orchestration, no matter the data source or execution channel.
But my belief and vision aren’t enough. The tech industry has shown us it’s easy to have a bold vision, but difficult to execute. What makes me so bullish is our proven ability to execute and deliver real value for our customers, fueled by:
- A customer-proven product – From our proprietary company ID graph and patented time-based prediction model, to our AI orchestration and advertising capabilities, 6sense is delivering incredible value for our customers. On average, 6sense customers are seeing a 40% improvement in overall revenue generation when using our platform to predict in-market accounts. In addition, 6sense was the most reviewed account-based sales and marketing platform on G2 over the past 12 months, and as a result of those reviews, we were named the leader in the G2 Grid® for Account-Based Advertising.
- A track record of execution – I’m extremely proud that we’ve been able to deliver three consecutive years of 100%+ revenue growth while rapidly scaling the business. It is truly a remarkable measure of both our focus on customer success and ability to execute. This is why our investors, partners, and customers continue to put their trust in 6sense to lead the industry into the future of RevTech.
- A passionate, results-driven culture – Every hour of every day we’re obsessed with meeting customer expectations, and beyond. From product development to our own revenue team, we are relentlessly focused on executing and delivering results. And to date, we have. We are a top-rated employer on Glassdoor, and a perennial Inc. Magazine Best Place to Work. We simply love what we do.
So, it is with humility, but also great confidence, that I can make this promise to our investors, customers, partners, and industry: 6sense will build and deliver the next generation B2B go-to-market platform that powers the RevTech revolution.
Who’s in?
Let’s GO!
JZ
