The company was launched in May 2012 by former BigMachines employees, with a focus on aggregating user reviews for business software.

To encourage reviewers to participate, some users are compensated by G2.com with gift cards, contest rewards and reputation points on the website.

In addition, reviews are manually screened and voted on by the community to discourage spam and unhelpful comments.

[1] In early 2018, G2 Cofounders Godard Abel and Matt Gorniak returned to the company after a brief period building Salesforce acquired Steelbrick CPQ.

[8] In 2015, G2 raised an additional $7 million in Series A funding led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital.

Investors included 2014's contributors in addition to co-founder Godard Abel, Thomas Lehrman, and Scott Dorsey.