LeadSquared, a provider of sales automation software as a service (SaaS), on Tuesday declared itself to be the newest unicorn in India after raising $153 million (about 1,194 crore) in a new round of funding from WestBridge Capital.
“With this funding, we will increase our growth investments in India and the United States, begin construction in APAC and EMEA, expand our product offerings, and finance acquisitions. In the upcoming 18 months, we intend to quadruple our personnel to support our growth, according to LeadSquared CEO and founder Nilesh Patel.
Nilesh Patel, Prashant Singh, and Sudhakar Gorti created LeadSquared in 2011. The company says it has more than 2,000 clients, including high-growth businesses in the edtech, higher education, financial services, healthcare, markets, and other industries.
Nilesh, who founded Proteans before it was acquired by Symphony Teleca Corporation in 2010, brings his ten years of sales and marketing experience to the table. Post-acquisition, Nilesh served as Vice-President of inside sales at Symphony before he opted to launch LeadSquared.
Nilesh holds an engineering degree from Delhi University and worked for IBM for four years in their microprocessor test tools group prior to launching Proteans.
“From roughly $100 crore in 2020ā21 to 200 crore in the financial year 2022, our revenue more than doubled. Now we are looking to increase our revenue to about ā¹400 crore in the next five years. Currently, we have 1,200 people, but in the upcoming 18 months, that number will quadruple “explained Patel.
Prashant was the co-founder of Proteans before he co-founded LeadSquared, where he presently serves as the chief operating officer (COO). He graduated from IIT Delhi with a degree in computer science and mathematics. He was a member of numerous product development teams at Telesoft, i2 Technologies, and Oracle prior to creating Proteans.
LeadSquared’s co-founder and CPO Sudhakar is in charge of product design and development. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur is where Sudhakar earned his degree in electrical engineering.
He worked in several software development positions at IBM, Talisma Corporation, and Oracle Software before starting Proteans.
Led by Gaja Capital, LeadSquared has previously raised $32 million. Stakeboat Capital-led funding for its Series A in 2019 totaled $3 million. The business has developed an international CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform that takes the guesswork out of sales execution and puts efficiency at the centre of every customer encounter.
Nykaa, which turned into a unicorn business in 2020, is the company’s main opponent. Purplle has over 1,000 companies on its marketplace, including five private labels, and seven million monthly active users, according to Economic Times.
Additionally, the brand is well-known in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. They bought Faces Canada, a well-known cosmetics company, last year.
“Our income more than doubled between the first quarters of FY22 and FY23. The company has also expanded its diversification.
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