Predictive analytics player InsideSales raises $60 million led by Salesforce

Predictive analytics firm InsideSales.com has closed another round of funding, this time raising $60 million led by Salesforce Ventures with participation from Microsoft.

Last April, the Utah-based company closed a $100 million Series C funding round led by Kleiner Perkins and Polaris, with participation by Salesforce.com. The latest round brings the company's funding total to around $200 million at a valuation of close to $1 billion.

According to Dave Elkington, CEO and founder of InsideSales.com, the fresh funding will be used for overall expansion of the company, with a focus on building out Neuralytics, the company's data platform that utilizes machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve recommendations to sales teams.

"The power of data science is becoming a mission-critical part of every business," Elkington said, in a statement. "Neuralytics, our predictive analytics platform, is at the heart of this movement."

While predictive analytics is having a moment in the enterprise space, especially for use in sales, InsideSales relies on Neuralytics to set itself apart. The platform targets salespeople as an aid for contacting leads and closing deals.

For instance, the platform pulls from its database of more than 14 billion data points -- ranging from lunar cycles to post-sports wins and losses -- to help sales teams determine who they should call and when and the likelihood of securing an interaction after a call.

The company already has an impressive list of enterprise clients including Microsoft, Groupon and Salesforce.com, but it has been snatching a slew of Salesforce executives to expand its reach even further. Jim Steele, former chief customer officer at Salesforce, joined InsideSales in January as its new president of worldwide sales and chief customer officer. David Rudnitsky and Lindsey Armstrong, also from Salesforce, joined InsideSales earlier this month.

As for its growth trajectory, InsideSales says it has experienced 100 percent year-over-year growth for the last four years -- no doubt setting the bar for its new funding. The company says it expects the growth streak to continue in 2015, with plans to open a second data center in Virginia, its first office overseas and hire between 300 and 400 additional employees.

Existing investors Polaris Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Hummer Winblad, U.S. Venture Partners and Zetta Venture Partners also took part in the latest round.