By Akash Sriram and Krystal Hu
Nov 4 (Reuters) - Nooks has secured a $500 million commitment from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund to finance the company's sales and marketing push, the sales automation startup said on Wednesday.
Unlike traditional investors that buy a stake in a company, General Catalyst's commitment involves taking a share of the returns its capital helps generate, Nooks CEO Dan Lee said. He declined to give details on the terms of the deal.
Nooks is betting that sales will be the next profession reshaped by AI, after coding, legal work and customer support, and the deal will help the company scale up and launch new products.
"In order to completely transform any industry, you need a lot of capital," Lee said.
"We felt that this was the best way to finance both aggressive growth and also taking new products to market."
Nooks said it is on track to nearly triple its annual recurring revenue by year-end, but did not disclose the current figure. The company has more than 2,000 customers, including Cursor, Notion, Replit, Glean and HubSpot, and had a net revenue retention of 135%, it added.
The AI startup formally launched its Revenue Agent Platform on Wednesday to cover tasks from first contact to renewal.
"The platform has shown a highly predictable revenue engine and strong unit economics, which is what we look for in companies with CVF. It's impressive to see that traction so early," said Pranav Singhvi, partner and co-head of the Customer Value Fund at General Catalyst.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru and Krystal Hu in San Francisco; Editing by Leroy Leo)