Jan 20, 2017 · 21m · top-founders
EP 545: Unomy Raises $3.4M, $160k MRR Helping Businesses Get Leads with CEO Gal Harzvi
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of The Top, host Nathan Latka interviews Unomy CEO Gal Harzvi, exploring how the B2B sales intelligence platform scaled to approximately $2 million in ARR through aggressive enterprise pricing pivots, multi-year contracts, and robust data verification infrastructure.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 39.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 3.8 Guest teaching 3.0 Guest disagreement 0.9 Nathan pushing back 1.9
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 7:40 Deflection on live valuation target
Gal refuses to reveal his target valuation figures on air because Unomy is actively in the middle of negotiating their Series A financing round.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 12:28 Clarifying gross logo loss against net revenue churnNathan intervenes when Gal cites net negative churn to re-center the inquiry on actual logo churn and whether any accounts have cancelled over the past 12 months.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 13:56 Structural difference between investor and sales databasesGal educates Nathan on market segmentation, demonstrating why investor-focused databases like PitchBook cap out at roughly 1M companies whereas sales intelligence platforms must index 7M+ broad-industry accounts.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 9:02 Formulating VC term sheet valuation mechanicsNathan displays deep startup finance command by constructing a full hypothetical term sheet linking ARR multiples, pre-money valuations, and equity dilution benchmarks.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top Tribe Weekly Cash Giveaway Announcement | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Nathan introduces the guest and mispronounces the company name as 'Unami', which Gal promptly corrects to 'Unomy'. Gal then details the early pivot away from a freemium research tool to an enterprise sales intelligence model. | |
| Revenue Milestones, Pricing Escalation, and Customer Base | 5 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Nathan presses Gal on exact ARR figures and round structures, getting Gal to confirm an expansion from $50 monthly contracts to $30k annual contracts and plans for an upcoming Series A round. | |
| SaaS Valuation Frameworks and Founder Equity Dilution | 7 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Gal explains the rule of thumb that founders expect 25-35% dilution per financing round regardless of stage. Nathan actively demonstrates SaaS valuation fluency by calculating an exact hypothetical term sheet with ARR multiples. | |
| Israeli VC Ecosystem and Unomy's Distributed Team | 6 | 3 | 1 | 4 | When Gal mentions having net negative churn from upsells, Nathan pushes back to clarify the distinction between gross customer logo loss and net expansion revenue. | |
| Database Scale and Differentiation from Competitors | 4 | 7 | 2 | 2 | Nathan asks how Unomy differs from competitors like PitchBook and CB Insights. Gal delivers an authoritative breakdown explaining that investor databases focus narrowly on tech startups while Unomy covers 7 million cross-industry companies for sales reps. | |
| Web Scraping, Data Partnerships, and 100% Accuracy Guarantee | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Nathan asks what AOL gets from Unomy and whether data accuracy is guaranteed. Gal outlines their combination of proprietary web scrapers, data licensing agreements, and real-time verification with full credit refunds on bounces. | |
| Sponsor Interlude: Acuity Scheduling Extended Free Trial | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Nathan runs an Acuity Scheduling mid-roll ad read followed by the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions covering favorite business books and software tools. | |
| Episode Summary and Key Performance Metrics Recap | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Host closing monologue summarizing Unomy's core metrics, revenue growth, funding history, and team distribution. |
Statements from this episode (18)
Harzvi: Unomy made zero revenue in year one before pivoting to enterprise SaaS
“In the first year we didn't make any revenue. Also in the second year we started with a freemium model, which wasn't very successful for us. And only this year, about 11 months ago, we completely changed the business model and switched into annual subscription…”
Harzvi: Unomy 2015 revenue was a couple tens of thousands of dollars
“Total revenue is just a couple of tens of thousands.”
Harzvi: Unomy 2016 revenue reached the low millions
“Eh, maybe, eh, it's a bit difficult for me to disclose it, like the exact amount, but eh, it's in the low millions.”
Harzvi: Unomy initially sold subscriptions at $50 per month
“When it started like two years ago, when it started to sell, we used to sell the product for 50 dollars a month.”
Harzvi: Unomy average customer contract grew to roughly $30,000 annually
“Today, it's like, it's about 10 times more on average.”
Harzvi: Unomy has raised $3.4M from three VCs via convertible notes
“So today we've raised 3.4 million dollars from three VCs.”
Harzvi: Unomy targets $5M to $6M for its Series A
“We'll probably raise an additional, probably around 5,000,005 to six.”
Harzvi: Founders should expect 25% to 35% dilution per round
“In every round, regardless of it's a serious, if it's a seed round, series A, series B, founders should be expecting to lose anywhere between, I would say, 25 to 35% of their company, including some options for the ESOP.”
Harzvi: Israel Is World's Second-Largest Startup Ecosystem After US
“So actually the ecosystem in Israel is the second largest in the world after, after the U S in both terms of number of startups. And also in the number of investments being made here.”
Harzvi: Unomy average customer lifetime value is roughly $50,000
“If I need to guess on average, it's probably be going to be around 50,000 dollars on average, the lifetime value of the customer.”
Harzvi: Unomy currently experiences net negative revenue churn
“Also the churn, the current churn right now is actually negative. Because we do have more upsells then.”
Harzvi: Unomy has over 100 customers and low logo churn
“We have more than 100, and we did lost a few customers because of different reasons.”
Unomy maps 7 million companies and 77 million business professionals
“We currently have about seven million companies and seventy-seven million business professionals with their verified contact information. And I would say that out of these companies and people, about 80% are based in the US. So out of the seventy-seven million…”
Competitors like PitchBook and CB Insights track roughly one million companies
“So DataFox, PitchBook, CB Insights, Mattermark, all these companies were very focused, at least when they started, They were very focused on helping investors finding the best investment opportunities. Investors and business development or corporate developmen…”
Harzvi: Investor-focused databases only track ~200,000 business professionals
“And in terms of business professionals, the investors, they don't need to know every single, about every single employee in the company or to get phones and emails of decision makers at these companies. So they have about 200,000 people in their database.”