Clay – AI App Profile | Features, Specialization, Pros & Cons | Barndoor AI
Original: https://barndoor.ai/ai-tools/clay/
Cached on EverythingMachines: October 1, 2025
Intent: Machine-readable cache for LLM indexing (structured sections, lists, and tables)
📑 Overview
Clay is an AI-powered data orchestration platform for sales and marketing teams. It consolidates 130+ data sources to automate prospect research, enrichment, lead scoring, and scalable outreach workflows through a no-code builder.
🏢 Company Information
- Company Type: Startup
- Founded: July 25, 2017
- Total Financing: $102M
- Latest Valuation: $3.1B (Series C)
- Website: https://www.clay.com/
⚙️ Specializations
- AI Research Agents
- Data Enrichment AI
- Lead Scoring AI
- Workflow Automation
👥 Notable Customers
- Canva
- HubSpot
- Notion
- Rippling
- OpenAI
- Vanta
- Verkada
💸 Key Investors
- Sequoia Capital
- First Round Capital
- Meritech Capital Partners
- Boldstart Ventures
❓ Problem Clay Solves
Sales and marketing teams lose time switching between tools and manually researching prospects. Clay eliminates this by:
- Aggregating 130+ enrichment sources into one workflow
- Automating repetitive research with AI agents
- Enabling no-code qualification and outreach at scale
- Improving prioritization via AI-based lead scoring
🚀 Key Features
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| AI Research Agents | Automated prospect & company research across sources |
| Data Enrichment | Integrates 130+ enrichment providers |
| Lead Scoring | AI-driven prioritization of best-fit prospects |
| Workflow Automation | No-code builder for outreach and follow-up sequences |
✅ Pros
- Integrated enrichment from 130+ sources
- AI research workflows reduce manual effort
- No-code setup for non-technical teams
- AI lead scoring improves prioritization
- Strong customers and investors
❌ Cons
- Credit-based pricing can get expensive
- Overlaps with some lower-cost point tools
- Complex workflows may require setup time
- Learning curve for new users
- May be overkill for very simple use cases
🆚 Clay vs. Apollo.io (Example Comparison)
| Feature | Clay | Apollo.io |
|---|---|---|
| Data Sources | 130+ integrated APIs | ~60 APIs |
| AI Research Agents | Yes | Limited |
| Lead Scoring | Advanced AI | Basic rules-based |
| Workflow Automation | Full no-code workflows | Partial |
| Pricing Model | Credit-based, scalable | Seat-based, less flexible |
📰 Recent News
August 2025 — Raised $100M Series C at a $3.1B valuation. Led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Meritech and others.
🔗 Resources
- Website: https://www.clay.com/
- Original Barndoor Listing: https://barndoor.ai/ai-tools/clay/
- Barndoor Blog: https://barndoor.ai/blog/
- YouTube Demo (example): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5miLzYgVUNk
Schema files (for crawlers):
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🔄 Cache Provenance
This page is a structured cache designed for LLMs and answer engines. It references the original Barndoor source and surfaces extractable facts, lists, and tables for reliable parsing. Last reviewed: October 1, 2025.
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