SaaS Unicorn LeadSquared eyes IPO in next three years

Sales and marketing automation platform LeadSqaured, which recently entered the unicorn club, is planning to go public in the next three-four years even as the software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm plans to clock a revenue of $200 million in the same period.

Unicorns are privately held startups with a valuation of $1 billion or more.

“We are on the path of building a $200 million company in the next three-four years and there may be  two-three more rounds of fundraising, even though we are well-capitalised for now…when we have the line of sight for $200 million we will think about an IPO as well,” said cofounder and chief operating officer Prashant Singh, addressing a session conducted by Exfinity Ventures on August 24.

Prashant was addressing a session on enterprise application and SaaS and he added that it is significant for SaaS firms to focus on burn rate and unit economics before raising funds.

LeadSquared in June raised $153 million in a new funding round led by WestBridge Capital, making it the latest SaaS firm to enter the unicorn club. India has around 15 SaaS unicorns so far. Last year around four SaaS startups — ChargeBee, BrowserStack, MindTickle, and Innovaccer entered the Unicorn club.

“India is already a huge market for us. We would continue to expand in
India and other regions as well. Our idea is to make it nearly 60-70% from India and the rest from other regions in the next couple of years” Singh said.

Founded in 2011 by Nilesh Patel, Singh, and Sudhakar Gorti, the company with main offices in Bengaluru and Silicon Valley helps enterprises lead management and analytics among other things. LeadSquared counts Byju's, Dunzo, Kotak Securities, Amazon Pay, and Practo among more than 2,000 businesses that use its platform.

The firm posted a revenue of LeadSquared posted revenue of Rs 200 crore (Around $25 million) in the year ended March 2022.

“We have built teams in different countries. US is a large market for us, and
we are expanding in other markets outside India as well.” Singh added.

The platform has recently set up a team in the Asia Pacific region and has a small presence in Africa. Patel said around 90% of its revenue is from India and the rest from the US. The company also established its Oceania Headquarters in Melbourne, Australia in August.

The firm is very keen on the inorganic expansion route.

“Our plan is to clock $200 million revenue and there will be many funding rounds and more inorganic activity as well happening before that,” Singh said.