Scaling Gong: From Startup to Revenue AI Pioneer

In the latest episode of the Scale-Up Nation podcast, hosted by Erez Shachar and Ram Ben-Yashar, Amit Bendov, CEO and co-founder of Gong, discusses the journey from founding the company at age 49 to reaching over half a billion dollars in annual recurring revenue. From early investors who believed salespeople would hate the product to customers who loved it yet eventually churned, Bendov reflects on the strategic decisions that built the company and addresses the question hovering over the software industry: whether AI threatens their business or enables them to fulfill their vision.

Gong has developed a platform for sales teams that analyzes customer communication to identify opportunities and risks, drive deals, and forecast revenue. At the time of the interview, the company employs approximately 1,700 people, with about 600 in Israel. In 2021, Gong raised $250 million at a valuation of $7.25 billion, briefly making it the most valuable private Israeli company. The path to these numbers began when Bendov struggled to understand what was happening inside a company he previously managed.

A Trillion-Dollar Problem

Before founding Gong with Erez Reshef, Bendov worked across engineering, product management, and sales, and served as the CEO of Sisense. Following a period of growth, the company hit a weak quarter, and sales stalled. When he tried to understand why, the sales team blamed marketing, marketing blamed sales and the product, and the CRM system provided no answers. A customer marked as having no budget ultimately bought from a competitor. For Bendov, the incident exposed a fundamental gap: companies spend massive amounts on sales, but the data explaining why a deal succeeds or fails remains trapped in conversations, emails, and the minds of salespeople.

This is a trillion-dollar problem, Bendov says.

Gong was designed to allow a salesperson to talk with a client while the system automatically recorded and analyzed the interaction. The enemy was the yellow legal pad where notes were traditionally jotted down. However, identifying the problem did not guarantee that customers would understand why they should pay for the solution.

Pricing and the Value Test

The initial test arrived when the company asked for $30,000 to $50,000, a sum that required executive sign-off. Everybody got very annoyed with us and paid, Bendov recalls. Later, he discovered that pricing a product too low could also sabotage implementation. A small transaction enters an organization easily, but it fails to capture the attention of a senior executive who can turn it into a significant project. Higher pricing forced Gong to reach decision-makers and connect the product to their core business goals.

The decision to focus specifically on sales teams was also a way to avoid direct competition with tech giants. Bendov realized that a product built for everyone would inevitably compete with companies capable of distributing it to millions of users as part of an existing bundle. If we build a horizontal product that suits everyone, we will lose because Microsoft will do it, he explains. Therefore, Gong chose to build a deep application tailored specifically for revenue teams, betting that deep domain expertise would create an unbeatable advantage.

Navigating Investor Skepticism

That same difficulty in communicating value surfaced during meetings with investors. Some believed the technology would not work, while others assumed Amazon and Google would dominate the space. Another major objection concerned the end-users: why would any salesperson want a system that records them and allows management to review their every word? Bendov took these concerns seriously and turned them into a product roadmap. To address user resistance, the company built features that helped salespeople prepare for meetings, share information, and advance deals. To prove market demand, Gong presented an impressive Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 66 among sales representatives.

Investors Dror Nahum from Norwest Capital and Shlomo Kramer ultimately agreed to back the venture. Nahum and Bendov spoke with dozens of prospective customers to validate demand, and despite positive feedback, Nahum noted it was one of the toughest deals to push through his partners meeting. Ultimately, $6 million was secured.

Reaching Market Dominance

Competition, in Bendov’s view, is not meant to end with a respectable spot in the middle of the pack. He set an uncompromising internal target for the company: There is one thing that matters at the end of the year—we are clearly number one, or I am no longer interested in this company.

By August 2020, amid the coronavirus crisis, Gong raised $200 million at a valuation of $2.2 billion, followed less than a year later by a $250 million round at a $7.25 billion valuation. While acknowledging that the valuation was high, Bendov insists it was not irrational. You raise when you can, not when you need to, he explains, noting that the cash buffer allowed the company to weather the 2023 economic slowdown without resorting to painful downsizing.

The AI Era and Future Horizons

Gong has crossed the milestone of $500 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and continues to grow at over 50% annually, serving more than 5,000 global customers, including half of the Fortune 10 enterprises. Addressing whether modern generative AI models threaten Gong or complete its vision, Bendov argues that core business needs remain unchanged: companies always want to sell more and spend less.

However, he contends that standalone foundational models lack the contextual depth required for enterprise sales execution. While an external model can provide generic advice based on a transcript, Gong connects calls, meetings, and emails, maps them to the correct enterprise deal structure, and strictly manages access permissions. As Gong continues to evolve its agentic capabilities, Bendov envisions a future where AI handles routine execution while complex commercial negotiations remain anchored by human decision-making.