---
title: "Clari Acquired Groove...Now What?"
episode: 22
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Anthony Enrico"
guest_title: "Co-Founder"
date_published: 2023-09-05
date_modified: 2026-07-22
duration: 00:23:15
word_count: 3773
topics: ["revenue-operations", "mergers-acquisitions", "gtm-strategy", "pricing-packaging"]
canonical_url: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/clari-acquired-groove-now-what/
source: "LeanScale Podcast Knowledge Hub — https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# Clari Acquired Groove...Now What? — Full Transcript

> Episode 22 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Anthony Enrico.
> Published September 5, 2023 · 00:23:15 · 3,773 words.
> Machine-transcribed and **not diarized** — speaker attribution is inferred, so verify
> attribution against the audio before quoting a specific person.
> Structured breakdown: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/clari-acquired-groove-now-what/

## 00:00 — Cold open: a wave of tech-stack re-evaluation is coming

**[0:00]** So there's going to be some major evaluation things happening across organizations and ops teams to make sure that they have the best technology that they can, but at the right price.

**[0:19]** Welcome to The LeanScale Podcast, where we talk about everything RevOps. Thank you for listening.

## 00:30 — The surprise: Clari acquires Groove

**[0:30]** So unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably seen that Clary has acquired Groove. Now this is a huge topic, especially for anybody in RevOps. It's a really meaty topic to go through too. There's just so much that's happening here. So I'm here with Bernardo and Cam from the LeanScale team. We're going to unpack as much as we can and dive into it. But the first that I think is interesting is I was pretty surprised by it. This was not something I was expecting to happen. This wasn't something that I think a lot of people were expecting to happen. So when I saw

**[1:07]** the announcement, I was taken back a little bit. I don't know how you guys feel. I was certainly taken by surprise. I think it was not something that I expected. I think the trend has been that more so the sales engagement tools were the ones that were creeping into the forecasting and pipeline analytics side of things. So seeing Clary kind of come into the fray of their own volition and taking the fight to them was surprising. But Groove as a fit was also a really interesting choice. We're big fans of Groove at LeanScale. So I'm glad to see them get the recognition that

**[1:46]** they deserve. We think it's a good fit. But it was definitely not something that we expected. Yeah, just to piggyback off that, I mean, we've had great experiences with both tools. So as Bernardo said, when you think about a best in class point solution for both of those respective companies, you know, something that certainly had our ears perked up our eyes wide to see the acquisition. So it is really interesting to think about the sales technology space and how we've seen some consolidation in the market recently and many tools trying to be the jack of all trades.

## 02:20 — A rare acquisition in a build-first market

**[2:20]** So for Clary to go out and acquire a tool like Groove and a company like Groove was really interesting to see. Yeah, and I think a lot of it has mostly been building new capabilities. So Bernardo, you're mentioning, okay, if you look at the outreach and sales loft type of companies in the world, they've been building conversation intelligence. They've been building out their own capabilities for forecasting deals and forecasting pipeline. And not a lot of acquisitions had been made. And this is a huge one. Compared to anything else, the one that may be comparable is Zoom info

**[2:56]** acquiring chorus to add some conversational intelligence. But everything else has really been built into the platform itself. So this is one of the few big acquisitions we've seen in this space race almost to take over the RevOps tech stock. Yeah, it's an interesting one, too. I think you hit it on the nail on the head there. I think the first one that comes to mind in terms of the chronology there was when Gong, which I don't think you mentioned there, but when they started rolling out their forecasting revenue, to me, was the first one that started making some

## 03:36 — How the revenue-intelligence arms race started

**[3:36]** waves and starting shaking things up. And then very quickly, it felt like sales loft and outreach got into the mix, primarily in the conversation intelligence first, but once they introduced the revenue intelligence portion, that kind of just opened the floodgates for everyone to get involved in there. But you're right outside of Zoom info, which really has been in their own category of doing their own thing and following a very unique path of just trying to dominate. They've done marketing OS trying to compete with HubSpot as well. So they've been on their own very interesting

## 04:24 — Why Clari + Groove could fit — and the integration risk

**[4:24]** path for a while now. But in terms of these tools that are very much fighting for specific market share against each other, no one has taken the acquisition path yet. They've always been building. So this is definitely a change in tactics. And ultimately, I think the payoff could be very significant because Clary is one of the best tools when it comes to forecasting out there, especially what they can do on the automation side, on the AI side. They are very strong there. And Groove is a standout tool in terms of communication strategy, what they are able to do in terms of their native connection with Salesforce and how seamless they integrate

**[5:10]** within the system. I do tend to give them the edge even compared to the outreach and sales loss of the world from a user usability perspective, and just how seamless they integrate with your overall processes and systems that you don't deal with nearly as much duplication or anything like that. But because it is a build, but because it isn't a build, and it is an acquisition, you're going to have to deal with fit and how these two will integrate with one another. And that brings its own sets of challenges. For sure, for sure. It's always difficult to do

## 05:48 — The core stack the market keeps asking for

**[5:48]** a clean integration of two companies, especially when you're taking two technologies. They're built very differently. The way they're developed and the way they've grown is very different. But what it does seem to be apparent is there seems to be this core set of functionalities that the market is really asking for. You need some level of sales engagement, so sending out your cadences and sequences to engage with your prospects and customers. You need conversational intelligence. That's becoming more and more of a requirement in the tech stack. You need data to empower this

## 06:24 — The consolidation contenders: who's in the race

**[6:24]** whole thing. So you need to be able to pull contacts and information of your targets to be able to even start being productive with anything. And then there's this layer of predictable forecasting that a lot of the companies are building into their platform. And some of that clarity has just been a market leader in for a very long time. So these seem to be the components that customers really care about. And it's made very clear, the strategy is, let's consolidate these into platforms. And so now we are left with a few different avenues to follow. So you have the clarity groove combo, you have outreach, sales,

## 07:06 — More consolidation is inevitable: dust off the scorecards

**[7:06]** loft, zoom, info, you have gong, you have Apollo, who just raised $100 million to enter in the race as another contender. What do we think is going to happen next? Because customers I don't think have fully reacted to what's happening in the space. I'll take that one. I think it's more consolidation. I mean, I know at lean scale, I think it was maybe the last Q4 where we looked at a logo wall of technology in the sales and marketing space. And there was probably more logos that we couldn't get on the screen. But there's just so many players out there that I think the industry is just ripe for more consolidation. So I think of it when we talk

**[7:50]** around the water cooler about the tools that are out there, we're going to continue to see more consolidation in the way of Anthony, you just listed out all of those different functionalities and features at every organization. And certainly on the go to market side needs, we're going to see more of this consolidation. And I think what it's going to happen from an ops perspective is we're tasked with evaluating tech stack, right or reevaluating tech stack on a regular basis. So we almost feel like at lean scale, it's time to start to shed some of those preconceived notions

**[8:24]** of, Hey, zoom info is the data enrichment tool and outreach and sales loft is the sales engagement software. It's time to start to shed that and we're going to have to start evaluating these tools for all of the features and functionalities that they've been adding over time. And instead of going out and saying, I'm going to pick here, I'm going to pick there and just evaluate in a silo, it's time to look across the board. Because if they've been investing funds in it, these are smart people, right? They're leading businesses that, you know, they want to add functionality that works and it is attractive to the market. So I think we've even had to

**[9:00]** do some looks in the mirror to say, Hey, it's time to dust off our scorecards. And let's start to look vendor by vendor and really understand what features and capabilities they're adding, because we're going to have to start to look at that and recommend to our customers. Hey, you may think of sales loft as sales engagement software, a and outreach as sales engagement software B, but what about their deal intelligence? It's time to start unraveling that to see what value you can get out of that to then maybe make cuts in other areas or reevaluate other areas of the tech stack. So I think that's as an ops leader, that's where you've got to start

**[9:38]** looking and reevaluating to say, okay, what does each of these tools actually bring to the table? What can get me to where I need to go? And where can I start to consolidate even internally? Because as we start to look at this consolidation, you're going to have to start to look across all those features and functionalities that you need to continue to push your go to market teams forward. It's just going to, it's going to be the nature of the beast going forward as we look into the future. And this was just, you know, one element to continue to push that consolidation downline.

## 10:09 — Point solutions vs. picking a platform

**[10:09]** Yeah, when I, you mentioned it, but to reiterate, when I think of our own recommendations, what are we recommending to customers right now? We, I would say, index a little bit more towards best in class point solutions, and then create the tech stack that gives you the best capability in each of those functional categories. But I don't know if there's that much differentiation between the engagement aspect of one platform over another anymore. I don't know if the deal intelligence or the AI behind forecasting is that much better with one tool over another.

**[10:48]** But my, my prediction, I think it's going to be, I think it's, there's going to be a really strong incentive to pick a platform and to align your go to market operation on one of these platforms. I think it's going to be really hard to have best in class point solutions, or it's just going to be expensive. Yeah, I generally agree. I think, in a way, I see three paths. And I think we're in the middle of a crossroads right now when it comes to technology and solutions when it comes to to the business world. And I can see any of these three coming just as likely as the next, it could

## 11:38 — Three futures for the consolidating stack

**[11:38]** be that this consolidation and branding exercises goes through exactly as we expected to. And we end up with these highly specialized packages that we have all the incentive in the world to go with a solidified platform. And you become, you know, a vendor of choice with an all encompassing solution. I can see that being the case, I can see a world in which you just can't shake off your previous branding. And you end up being known for what you've been known, and you just stay in that bucket for a very long time. And that's what you end up being forever. Hopefully, that's not the case,

**[12:21]** because these companies are investing a lot of resources into rebranding and changing their go to market strategy. But I mean, we're pretty on top of technology, it's something that we're evaluating day to day. And we had to do research to make sure that we were up to date on what everybody for the purpose of this podcast was offering. And it's really easy to get lost and diluted amongst offering when everybody's doing everything, right. So people are going to naturally gravitate towards what you're known for. And it's hard to shake that branding and pivot to something

**[13:01]** successful. So I can see a world in which that just maintains the status quo. And then I can also see a world in which you become so specialized as a platform that you just end up biting the bullet in a CPU. And you just go head to head with HubSpot and Salesforce, right? What's the differentiation between somebody that can offer everything and a CRM at that point, you're so close to threading the needle there. I'm sure one of these is eventually going to get so close that they're going to want to see can we take on the giants into space? And instead of being, you know,

## 13:41 — HubSpot threads the needle

**[13:41]** a point solution or a package of solutions, can I be the solution and become the ecosystem? Well, one company that is doing that and taking that approach right now is HubSpot. And they have done an incredible job gaining market share, gaining customers, honestly, winning hearts and minds. There are a lot of people who are very, very proud to be a HubSpot customer. And they have threaded the needle pretty well of offering a lot of these solutions in one they have data, they have engagement, they have conversation intelligence, and they are the CRM. That's actually a really interesting

## 14:23 — Will these platforms become the CRM?

**[14:23]** thought. Do we think that these, I will call them productivity platforms, because normally, you know, you're plugging this into Salesforce or something else to make it work. But do we think these platforms will creep into the CRM space and just own it themselves? Certainly seems to be trending that way. It almost feels like an arms race, right? It's an arms race of features and capabilities. So whether it starts more subtly, saying, Hey, you may not even need a CRM, because we have the sales engagement tool that you can see all your prospects, all your deals,

**[15:00]** I mean, the features aren't that far away from a CRM. I'm just wondering how long it takes them to stop playing nice in the sandbox with the CRMs out there, right? Because it's such a huge part of their business to, you know, be partnered with acquainted with your big CRMs of the world, your Salesforce is your Hubspots. So I can't imagine it's going to take a lot more to cross that bridge, but they better do so gently because it just is so important to their business to have those nice connections and friendly partnerships with the CRMs. But it just feels

## 15:37 — Thought experiment: what if Salesforce buys a platform?

**[15:37]** like the arms race is getting closer and closer that eventually there's going to be one of these technologies that takes the punch. Well, and I'll make one. I'll throw one thought experiment out there. And I don't think I think this is really unlikely to happen because Salesforce has always been known for building their business on the marketplace and they invest in the marketplace, but it would be really interesting if Salesforce decided to acquire one of these platforms and bring all of the capabilities that they have under one roof. Again, I don't think it would happen. I

## 16:11 — Advice for RevOps leaders today

**[16:11]** think it would dramatically impact their business, but I think it's an interesting thought if they decided to pull the trigger on something like that. So what advice do we have for somebody managing RevOps today? So try to think about what does our tech stack look like today, all these movements in the marketing, all this in the market, all this consolidation happening. What should we be telling RevOps leaders right now? I think the biggest thing that I would offer as advice is just make your connections in these companies, right? It's a period of heavy change. So make sure that you're

**[16:55]** well connected, make sure that you're trying out new things and staying up to date on what the offerings are and how they're changing because you want to be able to be in a position where if somebody is able to innovate and go to that next frontier where they become a clear standout, you can pivot in that direction with the way that things are going and things are becoming so hyper generalized and the lines between all of these tools are getting blurrier and blurrier. They're becoming very commoditized in a way. The difference between a sales loft and an outreach

**[17:38]** in particular, they feel like different flavors or different colors of the same shirt. Do you want green or purple? Yeah, sorry. Outreach and sales loft, if you're listening to this, we like you both, but you guys are very similar. So just being able to be flexible in terms of what you're doing and how you're evaluating these tools. You definitely just want to be connected and keep an eye out for what the movements are and what's taking place in there because you never know what's going to be the big disruptor that takes it to the next level. And there's a lot of ambiguity right now in terms of what could be the next big move that

**[18:20]** changes the landscape. It's certainly an arms race right now. Yeah, I think as an ops leader, the evaluation and reevaluation, you probably need to rethink the frequency that you're doing it. It's no longer could be quarterly or even annually, right? It's time like I talked about the scorecard. It's time to get that out from a vendor standpoint and really have clear buckets of, yes, you may know technology as this, like we talked about, but what are the other capabilities? Like it's time to really go deep on what's available. And we've barely scratched the surface.

## 18:57 — Cost, bundling, and re-evaluation cadence

**[18:57]** I know we've been talking for a little while. This is going to be one of our longer podcasts that doesn't have one of our great guests that come on. But you're going to have to look at that scorecard. You're going to have to get deep on the functionality of each of those things and what the trade-offs are. And we've barely touched on the cost implications, right? We can't necessarily project what cost is going to happen. I mean, we're seeing an inflationary period, so we can assume things are going up. Bundling may be more cost incentivized, but it's time to look at that and

**[19:30]** cost is going to be a huge factor. That's what your finance leaders in your organization are going to be focused on, especially as maybe more of this consolidation happens, more things are in the news about technologies coming together and acquisitions and mergers. So I think it's just going to be more frequent reevaluation, evaluation of new tooling to make sure that you're on top of where you may be able to start to bundle things together because you feel like the capabilities are good enough to get you where you're at today. So there's going to be some major evaluation things

## 20:02 — You're going to have to pick a pony

**[20:02]** happening across organizations and ops teams to make sure that they have the best technology that they can, but at the right price. Yeah, they get a certain point. You're going to have to pick a pony. Yeah. Which platform are you going with? Because it's going to likely. We can't predict, but I'm going to assume it's going to be much more affordable to bundle and package everything into one platform. So keeping your eyes on what these platforms are doing, are the features that they're adding real alternatives or is there something missing? Are they checking boxes to

**[20:38]** try to stay competitive? I think you need to do a deep evaluation to understand that. And eventually

**[20:47]** it's just likely you're going to have to pick one. So I think also right now, most of these companies are they're opening up war chests to be able to gain market share. And if you're in a position where you can pick a partner now, I think you can have a lot of negotiation power to go with a full fledged platform at this moment. Bernard mentioned, maybe it gets more commoditized in the future too, and you'll be able to negotiate, but you'll always be able to reevaluate that. But I think right now, compared to getting point solutions in each category, if you feel like your go-to-market

**[21:29]** organization is able to pick one of these platforms, I'm sure you can get a pretty good deal.

## 21:36 — Wrap-up: now what?

**[21:36]** Well, let's go ahead and wrap this one up. I know this was a big topic. We only barely scratched the surface of it. There's so much more to go into, and it would take a lifetime to evaluate every single tool that's on the market and know exactly which one's better than which. LeanScale's the RevOps company, and we implement these tools all day long, and still keeping up with the new players and the new features is a really challenging task. So we know it's a lot to go through. The key takeaways, Clary acquired group, let's see what happens. Do they become a

**[22:13]** real contender in the space? Do they integrate really well? And do they make the most of bringing those best-in-class category solutions together to make a really powerful platform yet to be seen? One thing that's for sure, there's going to be more consolidation. And it's very likely that it's going to be much more affordable for you to invest in a platform than to disperse your tech stack across a bunch of point solutions. So keeping your eyes on that trend will be really important. Do your own due diligence, test the tools, stay connected as you can, reach out to LeanScale if

**[22:48]** you want to get our opinion as well. But I think it's going to be a really interesting time. Bernardo Cameron, thank you so much. Great topic. And we'll probably have a follow-up to see how this goes. Thank you for listening to this episode. If you like the discussion, please like, share, and subscribe to wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss a new episode.