AI sales and marketing startup Clay has raised new funding and more than doubled its valuation, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Clay raised $115 million and is set to announce a valuation of $7.1 billion, the report said. That is more than double the valuation in an investment round in August last year.

The round was led by large asset manager Wellington Management. Wellington has mainly invested in startups that could go public within a few years. Sequoia Capital, a16z Perennial, DST Global and Alphabet investment arm CapitalG also joined the round.

Clay has focused over the past year on developing autonomous AI agents. The Clay agent helps automate work on corporate growth plans, identify promising customers and build outreach strategies for sales targets. Sequoia Capital partner Alfred Lin said Clay's product is changing into a "self-learning engine."

Growth has also been steep. Karim Amin (카림 아민), Clay's founder and chief executive officer, said annualised revenue this quarter will reach about $200 million. That is sharply higher than a year earlier. Varun Anand (바룬 아난드), Clay's co-founder and head of operations, forecast annualised revenue will reach $240 million by the end of this fiscal year and double next year.

Amin said the company kept its cash burn relatively low and posted a profit for a short period this year.

Clay is also winning large customers. Anthropic said it is using Clay's tools to automatically research potential sales targets. Airbnb is using Clay to find hosts for its Experiences business, and DoorDash is using it to find companies that may sign up for an employee lunch programme.

Rob Masone (롭 마초니), head of technology investing at Wellington, said, "The opportunity Clay has is huge, and it is becoming increasingly clear that it goes beyond the category of existing sales tools."