SalesLoft nabs $70M at around $600M valuation for its sales engagement platform

Artificial intelligence and other tech for automating some of the more repetitive aspects of human jobs continues to be a growing category of software, and today a company that builds tools to address this need for salespeople has raised a tidy sum to grow its business. SalesLoft, an Atlanta-based startup that has built a platform for salespeople to help them engage with their clients -- providing communications tools, supporting data and finally analytics to "coach" salespeople to improve their processes -- has raised $70 million in a Series D round of funding led by Insight Partners with participation from HarbourVest. Kyle Porter, SalesLoft's co-founder and CEO, would not disclose the amount of funding in an interview, but he did confirm that it is more than double its valuation from the previous round -- a $50 million Series C that included LinkedIn among the investors (more on that below) -- but less than $1 billion.