Apollo.io secures $100M in Series D, valuation at $1.6B 🎉💰

Tim Zheng found himself knee-deep in the trenches of running his first startup, BrainGenie. He tried several sales-prospecting tools, only to find them ineffective. So, he thought, "Why not build my own?" And thus, Apollo.io was born.

• Startup Story 📚: It's a tale of a platform that weaves together a labyrinth of sales intelligence, execution workflows, and a trove of over 270 million verified B2B contacts. So impressive is this feat that they recently secured a magnificent $100M in a Series D round, led by Bain Capital Ventures with participation from Sequoia Capital, Tribe Capital, and Nexus Venture Partners, nearly doubling their previous valuation to reach the $1.6B unicorn status. 🦄

• A Leap Forward 🌟: Apollo's revenue has leaped by a whopping 900% since 2021, and they now provide their services to three million users across 500,000 customers. A testament to Zheng's belief that Apollo was built to be an all-in-one solution across the sales funnel, natively unifying data and sales execution. 📈

• Overcoming the Hurdles ⛰️: Zheng argues that conventional go-to-market tech stacks are bloated with disparate tools that are complex, difficult to integrate, and cost-prohibitive for most businesses. Apollo.io addresses this issue by offering prospecting flows, meeting apps, and deal intelligence systems, all under one roof. 🏢

• The Next Chapter 📚: Apollo has more than $250M in reserve, and plans to expand their team from 450 to 1000 employees across various departments. They're ramping up their product and R&D, aiming to centralize the entire go-to-market stack for businesses. 💪

So here's to Apollo.io, geared up to reduce redundancies and make businesses go-to-market faster and more efficiently. Even in a market downturn, this startup unicorn is bucking the trend. 🚀🌟