A new wave of innovative startups is revolutionizing the customer relationship management (CRM) landscape, offering fresh approaches to help companies better connect with — and serve — their customers. From artificial intelligence (AI)-powered insights to community-driven engagement, these rising stars are reshaping how businesses manage relationships and drive growth. Let’s explore some of the most promising CRM startups that should be on your radar.
Top CRM Startups to Watch
Every year, new startups pull to the forefront of their industry through exciting innovation, tech, and industry-disrupting business models. We’ve rounded up the best CRM startups of 2025 that startup-lovers, investors, and aspiring entrepreneurs should follow.
Disclaimer: With so many exciting startups launching and growing worldwide, we aren’t able to cover them all. Furthermore, the startups that are listed below are not officially ranked and are listed in no particular order.
1. ClickUp
- Location: San Diego, California
- Founder(s): Zeb Evans, Alex Yurkowski
- Founded In: 2017
- Funding: Series C, $535 Million
- Investors Include: Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, HubSpot Ventures
ClickUp is a versatile project management and productivity platform that also offers CRM functionality. It provides tools for task management, document collaboration, and customer relationship tracking in one unified workspace. ClickUp aims to replace multiple separate tools with an all-in-one solution for businesses of various sizes.
2. DevRev
- Location: Silicon Valley (Palo Alto, California)
- Founder(s): Dheeraj Pandey, Manoj Agarwal
- Founded In: 2020
- Funding: Series A, $186 Million
- Investors Include: Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, Mayfield Fund
DevRev is a customer-centric software development platform that combines CRM capabilities with product management and customer support. It aims to bridge the gap between developers and customers, providing real-time insights and fostering better collaboration. DevRev’s approach is designed to help software companies build products that closely align with customer needs and expectations.
3. Copper
- Location: San Francisco, California
- Founder(s): Jonathan Lee
- Founded In: 2012
- Funding: Series C, $102 Million
- Investors Include: Storm Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Industry Ventures
Copper is a CRM system specifically designed for Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) users. It seamlessly integrates with Google’s productivity tools, automatically capturing and organizing customer data from Gmail, Google Calendar, and other Google applications. Copper focuses on simplicity and ease of use, making it particularly appealing to small and medium-sized businesses.
4. Pylon
- Location: San Francisco, California
- Founder(s): Marty Kausas, Robert Eng, Advith Chelikani
- Founded In: 2022
- Funding: Series A, $20 Million
- Investors Include: Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst
Pylon is a modern CRM platform tailored for business-to-business (B2B) sales teams with a focus on data-driven insights and automation. It uses AI to help sales representatives prioritize leads, automate follow-ups, and provide actionable intelligence to close deals more effectively. Pylon aims to streamline the sales process and improve productivity through its intelligent features and integrations.
5. Dex
- Location: San Francisco, California
- Founder(s): Kevin Sun
- Founded In: 2019
- Funding: Equity Crowdfunding, $150,000
- Investors Include: Amino Capital, Tapas Capital, Y Combinator
Keeping track of every prospect that comes into contact with a company can be overwhelming and confusing. There are multiple platforms to cross-reference just to get some basic data about what actions the prospect has taken and the communication that has taken place. Dex allows companies to consolidate all the data from multiple platforms into one place. Companies can integrate email, LinkedIn, Google Calendar, Facebook, and more.
6. AptEdge
- Location: San Mateo, California
- Founder(s): Aakrit Prasad, Anthony Kilman
- Founded In: 2020
- Funding: Seed, $21.7 Million
- Investors Include: Unusual Ventures, Stage 2 Capital, Pathbreaker Ventures
Using the power of AI, AptEdge is taking customer support to another level. The software is able to manage thousands of support tickets every day and automatically categorize them for your team based on trends in the copy. AptEdge then takes the data it’s collecting and makes predictive solutions for a company on whether or not tickets are about to churn or the revenue impact. The company is able to eliminate bottlenecks caused by support teams trying to sift through support tickets.
7. FullStory
- Location: Atlanta, Georgia
- Founder(s): Scott Voigt, Joel Webber, Bruce Johnson
- Founded In: 2014
- Funding: Series D, $199 Million
- Investors Include: Kleiner Perkins, Salesforce Ventures, Permira
FullStory is a digital experience analytics platform that incorporates CRM-like features to help businesses understand and improve customer interactions on their websites and apps. It provides detailed session replays, heatmaps, and user journey analyses to identify pain points and opportunities for optimization. While not a traditional CRM company, FullStory’s focus on customer experience makes it a valuable tool for CRM in digital contexts.
8. Common Room
- Location: Seattle, Washington
- Founder(s): Linda Lian, Viraj Mody, Tom Kleinpeter, Francis Luu
- Founded In: 2020
- Funding: Series B, $55.8 Million
- Investors Include: Greylock, Index Ventures, Madrona Venture Group
Common Room is a community-centric platform that combines elements of CRM with community management and customer engagement tools. It helps businesses build, understand, and nurture their communities across various channels, including social media, forums, and events. Common Room’s approach is particularly relevant for companies with strong community-driven growth strategies, such as those in the software and technology sectors.
9. folk
- Location: Paris, France
- Founder(s): Simo Lemhandez, Jean-Yves Poilleux, Thibaud Elziere
- Founded In: 2020
- Funding: Seed, $12.3 Million
- Investors Include: Kima Ventures, Material Ventures, Venture Forward Capital
folk is set up to be everything that other CRMs are not: easy to use and made for the next generation. The visual aesthetic alone will tell you who they are targeting but it’s the tool that does most of the talking. Companies are able to keep track of all their potential leads, influencers, and contacts in one place and it allows companies to easily manage them through tags. The helpful pictures and emojis thrown into the software keep it refreshing and easier to organize.
