Funding values the company at $1 billion, founder and CEO Nilesh Patel told ET, it is the latest software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm to join unicorn club,
ET first reported on April 12 The SaaS firm was in talks with Westbridge Capital for a new round of funding at a unicorn valuation.
ETtechUnicorns are privately held startups with a valuation of $1 billion or more. There are about 15 SaaS unicorns in India, of which Fractal Analytics, Unifor, Darwinbox, Amagi Media Labs and Hasura joined the club this year. Last year, four SaaS startups entered the unicorn club amid the funding frenzy.
Founded in 2011 by Patel, Prashant SinghAnd Sudhakar Gorti, Bengaluru and Silicon Valley based startup provides sales and marketing automation software to businesses, helping them with lead management and analysis, among other things. More than 1,000 businesses use its platform, including Byju’s, Dunzo, Kotak Securities, Vedantu, Acko and Practo.
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ETtech“In India, we plan to double our revenue and in North America, we are expanding our team and preparing for a high growth scenario,” Patel told ET.
LeadSquare generated revenue of Rs 200 crore as of March 2022. The platform has recently established a team in the Asia Pacific region (APAC) and has a small presence in Africa.
“We have hired a few people in South Africa and will continue to expand in Middle East/North Africa (MENA) countries. We are making progress there. From a product perspective, India and the US will be our main focus,” Patel he said.
After new fundraising, the company raised a venture round from International Finance Corporation (IFC) last October to boost its expansion into international geographies. It raised $32 million in December 2020 in a round led by Gaza Capital, which saw participation from existing investors Skatebot Capital and serial entrepreneur, Jyoti Bansal.
“India is an underserved country in terms of software penetration and the opportunities are massive. There may be some bottlenecks in the market, but they will be for the short term.
In India, LeadSquare also competes with other sales automation and marketing players such as WebEngage and CleverTap.
“We will be buying or acquiring assets in India and North America in the coming quarters. We are looking for firms who can assist us in areas like sales training, exposure, customer experience and more,” Patel said.
SaaS companies have raised $2 billion in 93 deals in the first quarter of 2022, according to data from research platform Venture Intelligence. In comparison, Indian software startups raised $4.5 billion in 2021 and $2.6 billion in 2020.
“Valuations change over time, but right now we are focused on building strong businesses. Times are challenging, but we have strong financial discipline in terms of cash burn, customer acquisition cost and payback period,” Patel said.
The deal comes at a time when investors are adopting a wait-and-watch approach.
“LeadSquare’s focus on building an easy-to-use platform that transforms sales processes through automation has significant growth potential in the global market,” said Sumir Chadha, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Westbridge Capital.