---
title: "Clay’s $115M Series D Is $7.1B — ARR Last Printed at $100M in December"
description: "Clay announced a $115 million Series D at $7.1 billion on September 9, 2026, led by Wellington. That is 2.3× the August 2025 $3.1 billion Series C and 42% above the January 2026 $5 billion employee tender. The Series D wire did not print current ARR. December 2025 $100 million ARR is the last company stock."
date: 2026-09-10T00:00:00.000Z
tags: ["2026-vc-news", "startup-funding", "venture-capital", "ai-ml", "enterprise-saas"]
source: https://venturecapitaltracker.com/2026-clay-115m-series-d-7-1b-wellington
---

# Clay’s $115M Series D Is $7.1B — ARR Last Printed at $100M in December

> Clay announced a $115 million Series D at $7.1 billion on September 9, 2026, led by Wellington. That is 2.3× the August 2025 $3.1 billion Series C and 42% above the January 2026 $5 billion employee tender. The Series D wire did not print current ARR. December 2025 $100 million ARR is the last company stock.

**Clay** closed a **$115 million** Series D at **$7.1 billion** on **September 9, 2026**. **Wellington** led. The [Business Wire](https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-wire-news-releases-pmn/clay-raises-115m-to-be-the-ai-growth-engine-for-every-company) is the company text; [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/clay-valued-71-billion-latest-funding-round-ai-agent-startups-run-hot-2026-09-09/) matches the dollars. Last verified **September 10, 2026**.

The number that will get copied wrong is treating **$7.1 billion** as a multiple of a **fresh** ARR print. The Series D wire **omitted ARR**. The last company stock is **$100 million ARR in December 2025**, from Clay’s [January tender post](https://www.clay.com/blog/tender-offer-2026).

This is [clay.com](https://www.clay.com) (Clay Labs; New York). It is **not** a materials company.

## Five-minute decision

| If you need… | Verdict |
| --- | --- |
| What happened | **Funded.** $115M Series D, Sep 9. Wellington **led**. |
| Valuation | **$7.1B.** 2.3× Aug 2025 **$3.1B** Series C. 42% above Jan 2026 **$5B** tender. |
| ARR | **Not in the D announcement.** Last company stock: **$100M**, Dec 2025. |
| Customers | **Company:** 17,000+ (Sep). Tender post: **14,000** (Jan). |
| Primary vs secondary | **$115M is primary.** The $5B tender allowed **up to $55M** of employee sales — do not add it. |
| Whether to diligence | **Yes**, if you underwrite GTM-agent infrastructure off a 2025 ARR print. **No**, if you need 2026 ARR. |

**Investigate further when:** a 2.3× mark-up in 13 months on a GTM data/agent product is the bet, and you can live without a current revenue stock.

**Wait or pass when:** you need 2026 ARR, net retention as of September, or Wellington’s cheque size.

## What closed

| Field | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| Company | [Clay](/startup/clay) (clay.com); New York; founded **2017**; CEO Kareem Amin; co-founders Nicolae Rusan, Varun Anand (joined 2021) |
| Round | **$115M Series D** at **$7.1B** · **Sep 9, 2026** |
| Lead | Wellington Management. **No** `/fund/wellington` |
| Named participants | [Sequoia](/fund/sequoia), StepStone, [a16z](/fund/andreessen-horowitz), Perennial, Meritech, DST, CapitalG, [BoxGroup](/fund/box-group), Boldstart, Bloomberg Beta, Evolution |
| Prior priced stack | **$100M Series C at $3.1B**, Aug 2025 (CapitalG). **$46M Series B at $500M** (Meritech; company 2024 post). **$13.5M Series A** (Sequoia). Seed / pre-seed: First Round, BoxGroup |
| Jan 2026 tender | **$5B** mark; **up to $55M** employee sales; DST led. Secondary |
| Lifetime primary | Series C-era company total was **$204 million**. Adding $115M implies about **$319 million** if nothing else closed in between — do not treat that as audited |
| Customers | **17,000+** (Sep wire), including **80% of the Forbes AI 50** plus Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Stripe, ElevenLabs, Workday, Siemens. **14,000** in the January tender post |
| Other | **$1 million** GTM-engineer scholarship (company). Product conference Sculpt, Oct 8 — not a financing fact |

There is **no** Wellington `/fund/` page. BoxGroup is an early check returning at D, not the lead.

## $100M ARR vs a $7.1B mark

If December’s **$100 million ARR** were still the run-rate, $7.1 billion would be a **71×** revenue mark. That is arithmetic on a **stale** denominator, not a September multiple the company printed. Customer count moved **14,000 → 17,000+** in eight months (~21%). That is not a substitute for 2026 ARR, NRR, or mix between self-serve and enterprise.

January’s tender post also claimed enterprise NRR **above 200%**, cash-flow positive for parts of 2025, and **no enterprise churn**. None of that was restated on September 9. Carry it as **January company**, not as Series D evidence.

[11x](/startup/11x) is the a16z-backed digital-worker comparison on this site — outcome-priced SDRs, not Clay’s data-plus-workflow canvas. Do not collapse them into one “sales agent” round.

Related: [Clay profile](/startup/clay) · [Harvey $550M](/2026-harvey-550m-15-5b-lightspeed-diffusion) · [September 9–10 index](/2026-september-9-10-investment-news-harvey-clay-covenant) · [September hub](/2026-september-vc-news).

**By:** [Venture Capital Tracker](https://venturecapitaltracker.com/editorial-policy)
**Last updated:** September 10, 2026

**Editorial note:** AI tools assisted with research, structure, or drafting. Venture Capital Tracker retains human editorial responsibility for factual accuracy, relevance, and source quality before publication.