# Birdeye and Qualified

> Birdeye and Qualified are two 2026 case studies in how AI is reshaping marketing software. Birdeye, the Palo Alto reputation and customer-experience platform led by Naveen Gupta, crossed $100M ARR with less than $10M of cash burn since inception. Qualified, the San Francisco AI pipeline company founded by Salesforce alumni Kraig Swensrud and Sean Whiteley, raised roughly $158M, built the Piper AI sales agent, and agreed to be acquired by Salesforce. Same wave, two very different playbooks.

## Achievements

- Birdeye crossed $100M in annual recurring revenue with under $10M of total cash burn since inception - a rare level of capital efficiency in SaaS.
- Birdeye serves more than 100,000 businesses and powers customer-experience workflows across reviews, listings, social, and search.
- Qualified raised roughly $158M from investors including Norwest, Redpoint, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire, and Tiger Global.
- Qualified built Piper, an AI SDR that autonomously engages website visitors and books meetings.
- Salesforce agreed to acquire Qualified to power autonomous pipeline generation inside Agentforce.

## Latest updates

- **2025-12** — Salesforce signed a definitive agreement to acquire Qualified, with the deal expected to close in Q1 of Salesforce's fiscal 2027.
- **2026-03** — Birdeye earned #1 enterprise rankings in G2's Spring 2026 report.

## Links

- Website: https://birdeye.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/birdeye/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/birdeye_
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/birdeye/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/birdeye/

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Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-07