HubSpot Inc. is planning to invest $100 million in tech startups through a new fund called "The CRM Platform Fund."
The Cambridge-based sales and marketing software company (NYSE: HUBS) said Wednesday that the new fund targets companies building software-as-a-service products that align with HubSpot's mission to help organizations "grow better."
To qualify for an investment, business-to-business companies must be actively raising a funding round from seed through late stage. Ventures can be based anywhere.
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HubSpot will invest through its HubSpot Ventures arm, which the company launched in 2018 with a $30 million capital commitment. Once again, HubSpot is looking for startups offering sales, marketing and customer services tools that can augment its customer relationship management software, or CRM.
Andrew Lindsay, a senior vice president of corporate and business development at HubSpot, confirmed that the $100 million will come directly from HubSpot’s balance sheet.
"Now is the right time to launch the CRM Platform Fund as our own HubSpot ecosystem is forecast to grow faster than HubSpot as its revenue grows," he wrote in an email. "It has grown from $4.8 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $12.5 billion in 2024. Ventures can be a force multiplier in driving that ecosystem."
Lindsay, who's based in San Francisco, added that HubSpot Ventures doesn't have a target number of companies in which it plans to invest from the new fund. Outside of the financial investment, HubSpot will also provide "helpful resources for startups to scale," according to Lindsay.
This year, HubSpot said it made 12 investments in startups such as Goldcast, a platform for virtual and hybrid events that was used in the latest installment of Startup Boston Week, and Clari, a California-based provider of revenue operations software that earlier this year closed $150 million in a Series E round.
Bay State companies that hit the $1 billion threshold in 2021.
Total revenue 2020
| Rank | Prior Rank | Company/Prior rank (*unranked in 2020)/URL |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | GE (General Electric Co.) |
2 | 2 | Raytheon Technologies Corp. |
3 | 4 | Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. |
