Gainsight Acquisition, Valuation, Funding & Investors

Gainsight was acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $1.1B in November 2020, a 11.0x multiple on $100M of revenue.

Gainsight acquisition price

$1.1B

Acquired by Vista Equity Partners · Nov 2020

Gainsight revenue at acquisition

$100M

Last twelve months · Nov 2020

Gainsight revenue multiple at acquisition

11.0x

EV/Revenue · Nov 2020

Cumulative funding Gainsight raised

$156M

across 5 funding rounds

Gainsight Overview

About Gainsight

Gainsight is a San Francisco-headquartered customer success platform that helps software companies retain customers and accelerate growth. The Customer Cloud integrates solutions for customer success management, product experience, revenue optimization, customer experience, and data unification. Founded in 2009, Gainsight serves enterprise clients like Salesforce and Zoom through its headquarters in San Francisco and offices in London, Hyderabad, and other locations worldwide.


Founded

2009

HQ

United StatesSan Francisco, CA

Status

Acquired

Customer focus

B2B

Revenue model

Subscription

Revenue

$100M (Nov 2020)

Valuation

$510M (May 2017)

Gainsight Acquisition

Gainsight was acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $1.1B on 30 November 2020.

The acquisition price implies a 11.0x revenue multiple on $100M of revenue.

Before the acquisition Gainsight had raised $156M across 5 funding rounds.

Gainsight is a customer success software platform that helps enterprises manage customer onboarding, retention, and expansion to drive positive customer experiences and business outcomes. Vista Equity Partners, a global investment firm with $73 billion in assets under management, acquired a majority stake in the San Francisco-based company on November 30, 2020, for $1.1 billion. Gainsight had raised over $187 million in venture funding prior to the acquisition and had achieved unicorn status with this transaction. Vista's decision to acquire Gainsight was informed by its direct experience with the company, as many of Vista's portfolio companies were Gainsight customers and had benefited from its platform.

Gainsight acquisition details
AcquirerDateTypePriceEV/Revenue
  • Vista Equity Partners
30 Nov 2020PE buyout$1.1B11.0x

Gainsight Valuation

Gainsight is currently valued at $510M, based on its Series E in May 2017.

The $52M round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Battery Ventures, Cisco Investments, Founders Circle Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and 2 other investors.

Gainsight's valuation has grown 1.3x from $400M at its Series D in November 2015 to $510M in May 2017, across 2 priced rounds.

Gainsight valuation by funding round

Gainsight valuation by funding round
DateStageValuation
May 2017Series E$510M
Nov 2015Series D$400M

Gainsight Funding History

Gainsight has raised a total of $156M across 5 funding rounds.

Gainsight's first fundraising round was a $9M Series A in April 2013. The most recent completed round was a $52M Series E in May 2017.

Gainsight funding rounds

Gainsight funding rounds
DateStageInvestorsRaisedValuationDeal Summary
May 2017Series ELightspeed Venture Partners (lead); Salesforce Ventures; Battery Ventures; Cisco Investments; Founders Circle Capital; Bessemer Venture Partners; Bain Capital Ventures; Insight Partners$52M$510MGainsight, a Customer Success platform founded in 2009 by Jim Eberlin, Nick Mehta, and Sreedhar Peddineni, provides software to help B2B and B2C companies reduce churn, grow recurring revenue, and optimize customer-facing operations. The Series E round on May 9, 2017, raised $52 million led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Battery Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco Investments, Insight Partners (also listed as Insight Venture Partners or Summit Partners in some sources), and Salesforce Ventures. This brought total funding to over $150 million at that time. The funds were intended to expand Customer Success initiatives into new global markets, industries, and channels, building on prior rounds including a Series A in 2013 led by Battery Ventures and a $25 million Series C in 2014 led by Bessemer. At the time of the Series E, Gainsight reported 167% year-over-year revenue growth in its last fiscal year (likely ending around early 2017), employed over 430 people across seven global offices, and added enterprise customers like Gigamon, SecureWorks, VMware, ABC Financial, MCG Health, naviHealth, and Resmed Brightree. The announcement coincided with Pulse 2017, its industry conference attended by over 4,000 Customer Success professionals. Gainsight positioned itself as the platform-of-record for Customer Success, serving enterprise customers representing over $2.23 trillion in market cap by mid-2017. Later developments included acquisitions of Aptrinsic and inSided, and in 2020, Vista Equity Partners made a majority investment at $1.1 billion valuation.
Nov 2015Series DInsight Partners (lead)$50M$400MGainsight, a Customer Success software company based in Redwood City, CA, helps B2B SaaS and cloud companies drive retention, expansion, and customer lifetime value through its platform. On November 12, 2015, it closed a $50 million Series D funding round led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors including Battery Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Summit Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The funds were intended to turbocharge global growth, support expansion into new markets, industries, and channels, and solidify its market position in the emerging Customer Success category. The round brought Gainsight's total funding to approximately $104-105 million, following prior rounds including a $25 million Series C in October 2014 led by Bessemer and Lightspeed, a Series B, and others. A bizjournals report indicated a valuation of about $400 million for this Insight-led round. Gainsight highlighted strong momentum with 252% year-over-year growth in Q3 2015 sales, adding new pioneering customers across industries. Investor interest stemmed from Gainsight's role in addressing churn challenges in the Subscription Economy, where traditional tech product revenues had shrunk while SaaS firms grew rapidly but with thin margins. Insight Partners, with experience scaling over 250 growth-stage software companies, was selected for their alignment with Customer Success and rapid process, signing a term sheet on October 3, 2015, after an August board decision to raise amid favorable conditions and over a year of cash runway.
Oct 2014Series CBessemer Venture Partners (lead); Lightspeed Venture Partners$25M-Gainsight, a Customer Success software company founded in 2009, provides a platform to help B2B SaaS and recurring revenue businesses drive customer retention, expansion, and success through tools for customer lifecycle management. In October 2014, it raised a $25 million Series C round led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners to fuel R&D expansion, product development, and market growth amid explosive demand in the emerging Customer Success category. Bessemer’s Byron Deeter joined the board, emphasizing the critical role of high renewal rates in cloud business profitability, while Lightspeed’s Nakul Mandan became a board observer. The round followed prior funding including a $20 million Series B in November 2013 and a $9 million round in April 2013 led by Battery Ventures, building momentum for Gainsight’s leadership in Customer Success. Key hires included VP of Products Karl Rumelhart from VMware and VP of Sales Mike Schmidt from Oracle to accelerate product and customer community growth. Gainsight continued raising capital, reaching over $150 million total before Vista Equity Partners' $1.1 billion majority investment in 2020, establishing it as a pioneer in customer success orchestration.
Nov 2013Series BSalesforce Ventures; Battery Ventures; Summit Partners; Bain Capital Ventures$20M-Gainsight, a customer success platform for subscription businesses, raised $20 million in a Series B funding round announced on November 6, 2013, led by Bain Capital Ventures with participation from Summit Partners, Battery Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures. The company, originally known as JBara Software and rebranded to Gainsight in April 2013, aimed to eradicate churn in the subscription economy by providing tools to monitor customer health and drive retention. At the time of CEO Nick Mehta's involvement earlier in 2013, Gainsight had around 35 customers including brands like Marketo and Informatica, a team of about 65 people after expansion from a dozen mostly in engineering, and had recently opened its first office while launching marketing efforts. The funding was intended to fuel aggressive growth, specifically to expand the engineering and data science team by 5X, scale services and customer success teams, and bolster community and thought leadership initiatives around the customer success movement. Investors, familiar with churn challenges in their own portfolios, proactively approached Gainsight, validating the opportunity in customer success software. The round followed an earlier $6 million investment from Battery Ventures in February 2013. Gainsight positioned itself as building the 'subscription yellow brick road' metaphorically, helping SaaS companies combat churn—the 'wicked witch'—through its platform. The company also announced Denise Stokowski joining as VP Client Solutions to support scaling deployments.
Apr 2013Series ABattery Ventures (lead); Employee Stock Option Fund; Silicon Valley Bank; Cultivation Capital$9M-Gainsight, a Customer Success Management platform leveraging big data analytics to reduce churn and drive upsell for recurring revenue businesses, raised a $9 million Series A round on April 17, 2013, led by Battery Ventures with participation from Cultivation Capital, Employee Stock Option Fund, and Silicon Valley Bank. The funding supported accelerated product development and go-to-market strategy following the company's launch after bootstrapping as JBara Software. Nick Mehta joined as CEO, bringing experience from scaling LiveOffice to a Symantec acquisition, while founder Jim Eberlin focused on product and sales. At the time of Battery Ventures' investment in early 2013, Gainsight had 10 customers and $120K in Annual Recurring Revenue. Early customers included B2B SaaS leaders like Marketo, Jive, and Eloqua. The round positioned Gainsight to capitalize on the shift to subscription models where customer retention became as critical as acquisition. Later in November 2013, Gainsight raised a $20 million Series B led by Bain Capital Ventures, joined by Battery Ventures and Summit Partners, bringing total funding to $30 million to scale engineering, sales, marketing, and customer success efforts in the $500 billion Subscription Economy.

Who has invested in Gainsight?

12 investors have backed Gainsight across its funding rounds, including Battery Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Insight Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures and Bain Capital Ventures.

Lead investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Insight Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Battery Ventures.


Gainsight Investors

Investors in Gainsight by funding rounds participated
InvestorHQRoundsRoleFirst check
Battery VenturesUnited StatesBoston, MA3LeadApr 2013
Salesforce VenturesUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA2ParticipantNov 2013
Bessemer Venture PartnersUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA2LeadOct 2014
Lightspeed Venture PartnersUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA2LeadOct 2014
Bain Capital VenturesUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA2ParticipantNov 2013
Insight PartnersUnited StatesNew York City, NY2LeadNov 2015
Cisco InvestmentsUnited StatesUnited States1ParticipantMay 2017
Founders Circle CapitalUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA1ParticipantMay 2017
Employee Stock Option FundUnited StatesSan Francisco, CA1ParticipantApr 2013
Silicon Valley BankUnited StatesSan Jose, CA1ParticipantApr 2013

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Benchmark 350K+ Funding Rounds and Disclosed VC Valuation Multiples

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Acquisitions by Gainsight

Gainsight has acquired 7 companies to date.

Last acquisition by Gainsight was on April 30th 2025. Gainsight acquired ModerateKit for undisclosed valuation.


Latest Acquisitions by Gainsight

ModerateKit
Erica Kuhl Consulting
Skilljar
Staircase AI
Description
-
-
Skilljar is a Seattle-headquartered customer education platform founded in 2013 helping enterprises boost product adoption through online training portals. It supports SCORM courses, certifications, and analytics integrated with Salesforce and Marketo. Used by 800 companies including Verizon and Adobe, Skilljar delivers 10 million learner sessions annually and improves NPS scores by 20 points on average.
Staircase AI is a San Francisco-headquartered platform that analyzes customer interactions using AI to deliver insights on health, sentiment, journey events, risks, and opportunities. The company processes call transcripts, emails, chats, and surveys for SaaS businesses to improve net revenue retention. Staircase AI integrates with tools like Zendesk, Intercom, and Gong, enabling teams to prioritize at-risk accounts and expansion signals through dashboards and alerts.
HQ CountryUnited StatesUnited StatesUnited StatesUnited States
HQ City
-
-
Seattle, WA
Los Angeles, CA
Deal Date30 Apr 202530 Apr 20252 Apr 20258 Aug 2024
Valuationundisclosedundisclosedundisclosedundisclosed
EV/Revenue
EV/EBITDA

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Investments by Gainsight

Gainsight has invested in 1 company to date.

Latest investment by Gainsight was on November 18th 2014. Gainsight invested in Vera in their $14M Series A round.


Latest Investments by Gainsight

Vera
Description
Vera is a Palo Alto-headquartered data security company founded in 2014 that encrypts files for secure sharing across Box, Dropbox, and mobile devices. Acquired by Varonis in 2019, it enables granular access revocation and tracking for enterprises. Vera protects sensitive data in legal and IP sectors worldwide.
HQ CountryUnited States
HQ City
San Francisco, CA
Deal Date18 Nov 2014
RoundSeries A
Raised$14M
InvestorsAvant Global LLC; Battery Ventures; Clear Ventures; Amplify Partners
Valuationundisclosed
EV/Revenue
EV/EBITDA

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Gainsight Competitors

Gainsight competitors include listed companies like Craneware and Waystar, and private ones like Cohere Health, Pearl Health, Zhiyihuiyun and Ocrolus.

Public and private companies comparable to Gainsight
CompanyHQStatusRevenueEBITDAValuationRevenue Multiple
Cohere HealthUnited StatesBoston, MAPrivate--$750M-
Pearl HealthUnited StatesNew York City, NYPrivate--$733M-
ZhiyihuiyunChinaWuhuPrivate--$655M-
CranewareUnited KingdomUnited KingdomPublicly listed$206M$59M$589M2.7x
OcrolusUnited StatesUnited StatesPrivate$20M-$500M25.0x
WaystarUnited StatesUnited StatesPublicly listed$1.1B$390M$5.1B5.2x

Gainsight Public Comps

Gainsight is no longer listed, but its public comps include RWS Holdings, Craneware, CS Disco, Hibino, CareCloud, Xp Industrial FII, GetBusy, Valtes Holdings, Intapp and Waystar.

Last FYEV/RevenueEV/EBITDA
RevenueEBITDALast FYLTM2027ELast FYLTM2027E
RWS Holdings$927M($26M)0.7x0.7x(27.2x)4.8x
Craneware$206M$59M2.8x2.7x9.7x8.7x
CS Disco$157M($44M)1.1x1.0x(4.0x)(22.1x)
Hibino$435M$60M0.6x0.6x4.3x-
CareCloud$120M$28M1.1x1.1x4.8x5.0x
Xp Industrial FII$9M-10.0x---
GetBusy$30M$2M2.1x2.0x35.2x32.5x
Valtes Holdings$77M$6M0.6x0.6x7.4x-

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Common questions about Gainsight

When was Gainsight founded?Gainsight was founded in 2009.
Where is Gainsight headquartered?Gainsight is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, United States.
Is Gainsight publicly listed?No, Gainsight was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in November 2020.
Who acquired Gainsight?Gainsight was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in November 2020.
How much was Gainsight acquired for?Gainsight was acquired for $1.1B in November 2020, a 11.0x revenue multiple.
What is Gainsight's valuation?Gainsight was last valued at $510M in its Series E in May 2017.
How much funding has Gainsight raised?Gainsight has raised $156M across 5 funding rounds.
What was Gainsight's last funding round?Gainsight's last funding round was a $52M Series E in May 2017, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Who are Gainsight's investors?Gainsight's investors include Battery Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, Insight Partners, Cisco Investments, Founders Circle Capital, Employee Stock Option Fund, Silicon Valley Bank and 2 others.
Which companies are comparable to Gainsight?Companies comparable to Gainsight include Cohere Health, Pearl Health, Zhiyihuiyun, Craneware, Ocrolus and Waystar.
How many companies has Gainsight acquired?Gainsight has acquired 7 companies, including ModerateKit, Erica Kuhl Consulting, Skilljar, Staircase AI and Northpass.
What was the largest acquisition by Gainsight?The $85M acquisition of inSided in January 2022 is the largest acquisition Gainsight has made to date.
How many companies has Gainsight invested in?Gainsight has invested in 1 company, including Vera.
What was Gainsight's last investment?In November 2014, Gainsight invested in Vera's $14M Series A alongside Avant Global LLC, Battery Ventures, Clear Ventures and 1 other investor.

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