Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) startup SquadStack has raised Rs 140 crore (around $17.5 million) in a Series B funding round led by Bertelsmann India Investments, with participation from existing investors Chiratae Ventures and Blume Ventures.
The startup aims to utilise the funding to hire top talent and strengthen its workforce for expansion, it said in a prepared statement on August 9. It also plans to increase its sales experts base and further expand into new verticals.
Founded in 2017 by Apurv Agrawal, Vikas Gulati and Kanika Jain, SquadStack is a SaaS-enabled talent marketplace for sales. The startup combines data science, artificial intelligence (AI), and a decentralised network of sales experts to help consumer businesses scale with better conversions. It offers its services across sectors such as real estate, financial services, education, healthcare and retail.
“We’re working towards revolutionising the Rs 80,000 crore Indian telesales industry that lacks innovation. Our combined solution of technology and human expertise solves a negative ROI problem for businesses and financially uplifts sales talent across the country,” said Agrawal in the statement.
SquadStack partners with existing sales talent and homemakers, allowing them to work from anywhere with the help of a smartphone.
SquadStack’s team operates in a hybrid work model across five cities, Noida, Gurgaon, Bengaluru, Goa and Mumbai, and it will add three more cities in the coming months which are Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune, it said in the statement.
“We believe that in the long run, great products and profit are the byproduct of a great team and work culture. We’re excited to partner with the BII team who have deep experience in scaling large platform businesses globally,” Agrawal added.
In 2018, SquadStack launched SquadVoice (presently SquadIQ) in India which is a sales acceleration platform. It counts Walmart, Times Group, Delhivery, Nestaway, Upstox, ZestMoney, and Zomato as its clients.
In September 2020, the SaaS firm raised $5 million in a Series A funding round led by Chiratae Ventures. Existing investor Blume Ventures also participated in the round. In 2017 SquadStack raised $2.1 million in pre-series A funding led by Blume Ventures.
“We have a strong bullish thesis on ‘future of work’ and SquadStack fits strongly in that as their technology provides ownership and flexibility to the large, diverse and distributed sales talent in the country,” said Rohit Sood, partner, Bertelsmann India Investments.
