G2 Crowd
G2, formerly known as G2 Crowd, is a Chicago-based peer-to-peer review platform for business software and services, founded in 2012 to provide authentic user insights that help companies discover, evaluate, and manage technology solutions.[1][2][3] The company was established by a team of five entrepreneurs, including CEO Godard Abel, Tim Handorf, Mike Wheeler, Matt Gorniak, and Mark Myers, who previously worked together at BigMachines and sought to disrupt traditional analyst-driven software evaluations by leveraging real-user reviews.[3][4] As the world's largest tech marketplace, G2 features over 180,000 products and services across more than 2,100 categories, with millions of validated reviews from users at every Fortune 500 company and beyond.[1] Headquartered at 100 South Wacker Drive in Chicago, Illinois, G2 has grown to serve over 3,600 global customers, including more than 60% of the Forbes Cloud 100 companies, by offering tools for buyers to compare options, sellers to build visibility, and investors to gauge market trends.[2][1] The platform has secured $257 million in total funding from prominent investors and emphasizes trust through rigorous review validation processes, while also engaging in philanthropy via initiatives like G2 Gives, which has raised over $1 million for charities.[1]Overview
Platform and Services
G2 functions as a peer-to-peer marketplace for business-to-business (B2B) software and services, enabling users to discover, compare, and select solutions through aggregated authentic peer reviews.[1] The platform addresses trust gaps in B2B software selection by providing transparent, verified user feedback that powers personalized recommendations and reduces reliance on vendor marketing materials.[5] With over 3 million verified reviews as of October 2025, G2 empowers millions of software buyers to make data-driven decisions across diverse categories.[6] Central to G2's operations is its review collection and validation process, which ensures the authenticity and reliability of user-generated content. Reviews are submitted by verified users and undergo a multi-step moderation, including identity confirmation via LinkedIn profiles, business email addresses, or personal emails accompanied by employment screenshots.[7] G2 employs an unbiased moderation approach to detect and exclude AI-generated or incentivized content, maintaining that every review reflects genuine user experiences.[8] For buyers, G2 offers comprehensive software discovery tools, including searchable grids, comparison charts, and ratings based on user satisfaction metrics to streamline the evaluation of potential purchases.[5] Vendors benefit from marketing and lead generation solutions, such as profile optimization, buyer intent data to identify in-market prospects, and content subscriptions that enhance visibility and engagement on the platform.[9] Investors access G2's data analytics through its Data Solutions, which provide real-time buyer behavioral insights, adoption trends, and market mapping to inform investment strategies and forecast demand in software categories.[10][11] As of 2025, G2 covers more than 2,100 categories encompassing over 180,000 products and services, making it a comprehensive resource for B2B technology ecosystems.[1] This extensive coverage, combined with its verified review database, positions G2 as a critical tool for bridging information asymmetries between buyers, vendors, and stakeholders in the software industry.[5]Key Features and Metrics
G2's platform features the G2 Grid, a proprietary rating system that evaluates software products based on two core dimensions: customer satisfaction scores derived from verified user reviews and market presence assessed through review volume, vendor size, and digital footprint.[12] This quadrant-style visualization positions products as Leaders, High Performers, Contenders, or Challengers, enabling buyers to quickly identify top options within specific categories.[12] Complementing the Grid, G2 provides buyer intent data, which aggregates signals from user interactions on the platform—such as searches, profile views, and comparison activities—to indicate active research and purchasing interest in particular software solutions.[9] The platform also incorporates AI-powered search and recommendations through G2.ai, allowing users to query in natural language for personalized software suggestions based on over 3 million verified reviews across more than 2,100 categories.[6] Additionally, G2 publishes quarterly Market Reports, including Grid and Index editions, that rank products and services using the latest aggregated review data to highlight trends and leaders in evolving markets like AI and cloud computing.[13] As of October 2025, G2 hosts over 3 million verified reviews, underscoring its scale as the largest repository of peer insights for business technology.[6] The platform serves more than 3,600 enterprise customers worldwide, including over 60% of the Forbes Cloud 100 companies, demonstrating its influence among top-tier organizations.[1] G2 maintains a global presence with offices in multiple countries, including its headquarters in Chicago, United States; European headquarters in London, United Kingdom; an office in Bengaluru, India; and teams in Singapore, as well as remote work opportunities worldwide.[14] To ensure review authenticity, G2 employs a multi-step validation process that begins with reviewer authentication via LinkedIn profile, verified business email, or a personal email accompanied by a screenshot proving active use of the software.[7] For software reviews, reviewers must submit an approved screenshot showing themselves logged into the product dashboard to earn the "Verified Current User" label, confirming recent and genuine usage within the past 12 months.[15] This rigorous approach, combined with AI-assisted moderation to detect inconsistencies or generated content, filters out fraudulent submissions and promotes transparent, unbiased feedback from real users.[8] Vendors benefit from tools like review amplification programs, which facilitate targeted collection of authentic feedback through integrated prompts and incentives, helping to boost visibility on the G2 Grid and attract buyer intent signals.[9] Buyers, in turn, access comparison charts that juxtapose up to four products side-by-side, displaying aggregated scores, pros/cons, pricing insights, and review excerpts for informed decision-making.[16]History
Founding and Early Development
G2 was founded in October 2012 as G2 Labs, Inc., by Godard Abel, Tim Handorf, Matt Gorniak, Mark Myers, and Mike Wheeler, all former employees of BigMachines, a cloud-based configure-price-quote (CPQ) software company.[17][18] The co-founders, drawing from their experience at BigMachines—which Abel had led as CEO before its acquisition by Oracle in 2013—identified a critical gap in the B2B software market: the absence of authentic, peer-driven reviews to guide purchasing decisions, unlike the abundance of consumer review platforms for everyday products.[19][20] Their initial vision was to create a "Yelp for enterprise software," aggregating user-generated reviews to empower buyers with transparent insights into business tools.[21] The concept took shape in Abel's basement in Highland Park, Illinois, where the five entrepreneurs brainstormed the platform's core mechanics, emphasizing real-user feedback to build trust in high-stakes B2B purchases.[17] A beta version of the review site launched in December 2012, inviting several thousand users to test and contribute early reviews before the full public rollout in 2013.[22] Bootstrapped with seed investments from the co-founders—including an early contribution from Handorf's father—the team established their first office in a modest, leaky-roofed space in Highland Park to centralize operations near Chicago.[17] This setup allowed the initial five-person team to focus on curating content and fostering a community of reviewers, directly tackling the challenge of unreliable or vendor-biased information in B2B software evaluation.[23] By 2014, G2 had raised an additional $2.3 million in seed funding from investors including Chicago Ventures and Hyde Park Ventures, enabling the team to expand and refine the platform's aggregation of peer reviews for business software categories.[23] This early growth phase solidified the company's commitment to democratizing B2B software discovery through verified user experiences, setting the foundation for its evolution into a comprehensive review ecosystem.[24]Rebranding and Expansion
In 2013, the company rebranded from G2 Labs to G2 Crowd to highlight its emphasis on crowd-sourced user reviews for business software, marking a shift toward building a community-driven platform for peer insights.[25][22] During the mid-2010s, G2 Crowd expanded its offerings by launching tools to support vendors, including enhanced analytics and marketing capabilities that allowed software providers to leverage review data for promotion, with significant developments around 2016 coinciding with the growth of its Grid reports. The platform also broadened beyond software to include services such as consulting, introducing dedicated service reviews in 2018 to provide users with evaluations of professional offerings like IT consulting and implementation partners.[26][27] Geographic expansion accelerated in the late 2010s, with the opening of a London office in June 2019 to serve the European market and support growing international buyer demand, followed by the establishment of a team in Singapore by 2020 to target Asia-Pacific users. This period saw rapid user growth, culminating in the platform surpassing 1 million authentic reviews by November 2019, reflecting increased engagement from business professionals seeking reliable software recommendations.[28][21][29] Key partnerships further bolstered the platform's ecosystem, including a 2018 integration with Salesforce that enabled vendors to sync G2 reviews directly into their CRM systems for sales enablement. In 2019, G2 Crowd rebranded to simply G2 to encompass its evolving role as a comprehensive B2B marketplace, a change that aligned with the acquisition of Advocately to enhance review collection and amplification tools for vendors.[27][30][31]Funding
Investment Rounds
G2 has raised a total of $258 million in funding across seven rounds between 2013 and 2021.[32] These investments supported the company's evolution from a nascent review platform to a comprehensive software marketplace, with early capital focused on product development and team growth, and later rounds enabling international expansion and strategic acquisitions.[33][34] The initial seed round occurred in February 2013, raising $2 million from undisclosed investors to launch the core peer-to-peer review platform for business software.[35] This was followed by an additional seed investment of $2.3 million in April 2014, led by Chicago Ventures and Hyde Park Venture Partners, along with individual angels, bringing the total seed funding to over $4 million and funding initial platform enhancements and user acquisition efforts.[23][36] In July 2015, G2 secured $7 million in its first Series A round, led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital, with participation from High Alpha, Chicago Ventures, Hyde Park Angels, TechNexus Venture Collaborative, and 500 Startups.[37] The funds were allocated to hiring, marketing, and expanding coverage to additional software categories.[38] An extension to this round came in December 2016 with $4.3 million raised from existing investors, primarily to scale operations and refine the review aggregation algorithms.[39][35] The Series B round in May 2017 raised $30 million, led by Accel, with contributions from Pritzker Group Venture Capital and the company's founders, Tim Handorf and Mark Myers.[34][40] This capital accelerated global community building and platform features, aiming to increase headcount from 100 to 350 employees.[41] G2's Series C funding totaled $55 million in October 2018, led by IVP, alongside Emergence Capital, Accel, and Pritzker Group, pushing cumulative funding to $100 million at the time.[42][43] The investment supported the transition toward a full marketplace model, including tools for request-for-proposal processes and solution management, while fueling a 500% headcount increase.[42] The largest round, a Series D, closed in June 2021 with $157 million at a $1.1 billion valuation, led by Permira and including Accel, Emergence Capital, IVP, HubSpot Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, LinkedIn, and individual investors Auren Hoffman and Thomas D. Lehrman via Teamworthy Ventures.[33] These proceeds were directed toward product innovation, team expansion, and furthering international reach to solidify G2's position as the leading software marketplace.[33]| Round | Date | Amount | Lead Investor(s) | Key Participants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | Feb 2013 | $2M | Undisclosed | - |
| Seed | Apr 2014 | $2.3M | Chicago Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners | Angels |
| Series A | Jul 2015 | $7M | Pritzker Group Venture Capital | High Alpha, Chicago Ventures, Hyde Park Angels, TechNexus, 500 Startups |
| Series A Extension | Dec 2016 | $4.3M | Existing investors | Pritzker Group, others |
| Series B | May 2017 | $30M | Accel | Pritzker Group, founders |
| Series C | Oct 2018 | $55M | IVP | Emergence Capital, Accel, Pritzker Group |
| Series D | Jun 2021 | $157M | Permira | Accel, Emergence, IVP, HubSpot Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, LinkedIn |