Publicly-traded ZoomInfo Technologies Inc., which supplies enterprises with market intelligence they use to find new customers, today announced that it has inked a deal to buy sales analytics startup Chorus.ai Inc. for $575 million.

Chorus.ai previously raised about $100 million in funding from investors including Redpoint Ventures and Emergence Capital.

San Francisco-based Chorus.ai provides a cloud service that uses artificial intelligence to detect useful patterns in conversations between a company’s salespeople and customers. Companies can analyze those patterns to find ways of generating more revenue.

Chorus.ai’s AI algorithms map out which members of the sales team close the most deals and identify the customer acquisition tactics they use. With this information, companies can help their other sales representatives become more productive. Chorus.ai also provides an analytics dashboard for tracking how the number of deals closed by the company increases or decreases over time. 

In addition to identifying ways of improving sales teams’ productivity, Chorus.ai can detect market changes. For example, if a company’s potential clients start mentioning a rival product that was launched a few months ago, Chorus.ai can automatically detect the trend. The company can then adjust its sales efforts accordingly to address the new competition.

Chorus.ai says its platform is useful not just for sales teams but also for marketing departments. Using the insights about customer interests that the platform provides, marketing teams can better align ads and other promotional materials with user expectations.

Chorus.ai’s technology will complement the existing products of ZoomInfo, which is likewise in the business of helping enterprises glean more data about sales opportunities. Nasdaq-traded ZoomInfo operates a sales database that contains information on more than 100 million organizations. Sales teams at Amazon.com Inc., Google LLC and roughly 20,000 other firms use the database to help them find organizations that might be interested in buying their solutions.

“The acquisition of Chorus will support our aim to be a champion for sales professionals, helping them to identify, connect with, and sell to decision makers at the companies who are most likely to buy their products and services,” ZoomInfo Chief Executive Officer Henry Schuck wrote in a blog post.

Chorus.ai is the third startup ZoomInfo has acquired over the past 12 months. The deals are part of an effort by the company to expand into new parts of the sales technology market. 

Last month, ZoomInfo acquired Insent.ai Inc., whose platform enables enterprises to create chatbots that engage potential buyers visiting their websites. The company earlier purchased EverString Inc., which developed machine learning algorithms that scan the web for information about potential sales opportunities.

Unlike with the Chorus.ai acquisition, ZoomInfo didn’t disclose the value of the two deals, though the purchase of EverString likely carried a substantial price tag. The startup had raised more than $75 million from investors, including Sequoia. 

In the blog post announcing the purchase of Chorus.ai today, Schuck explained the motivation behind ZoomInfo’s acquisition strategy. ’We are building a modern go-to-market platform where intelligence, workflow and engagement technology combine to deliver pipeline and revenue generation through insight-driven automation,” the CEO wrote.

ZoomInfo is financing the acquisition of Chorus.ai with a combination of $75 million in cash on hand and $500 million in “additional financing.” Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC is ZoomInfo’s financial adviser for the deal.

The acquisition is set to create more competition for Gong.io Inc., Chorus.ai’s main rival, which recently achieved a $7.25 billion valuation after closing a $250 million funding round. ZoomInfo’s considerable resources will likely allow it to expand Chorus.ai’s market presence faster than the startup could have done on its own.

ZoomInfo went public on the Nasdaq last year in an initial public offering that raised more than $900 million. The company is currently trading at about $53 per share, well above its $34 IPO price. 

Image: ZoomInfo