MassMutual-backed Affinity raises $80 million

San Francisco-based Affinity closed an $80 million Series C funding round led by Menlo Ventures with participation from Advance Venture Partners, Sprints Capital, Pear Ventures, Sway Ventures, MassMutual Ventures , Teamworthy, and ECT Capital Partners / Brian N. Sheth.

Founded in 2014, the company offers a relationship intelligence platform to find, manage and close more deals. “By aggregating the ‘data exhaust’ produced by daily interactions and communications such as email interactions and calendar meetings and analyzing it with machine learning, Affinity delivers up-to-the-minute insights into professional relationships, revealing who in the organization has the best chance of opening doors and closing deals.”

“Traditional CRMs are little more than a digital Rolodex that require constant data entry to stay relevant. Today, when we’re all connected, success in the relationship economy is not about who you know, it’s about how well you and your team know them. We can tell you that without the drudgery of manual data entry. That’s the currency for dealmaking success.” – Ray Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Affinity.

Affinity plans to use the new funding to expand its sales and marketing reach into sectors such as investment banking, private equity, real estate, and professional services, including accounting, management consulting, and law firms.