LeadSquared today said that it has raised $153 million in funding to grow the adoption of its namesake software platform, which helps more than 2,000 companies manage their sales efforts.

WestBridge Capital led the round with participation from multiple existing investors. LeadSquared, which is incorporated as MarketXpander Services Pvt Ltd., is now valued at $1 billion.

Bangalore-based LeadSquared provides a platform that companies can use to orchestrate their sales activities. The platform functions as a customer relationship management system, enabling companies to store data about sales opportunities in a centralized repository for easy access. It also provides an array of other features for streamlining the customer acquisition workflow. 

The startup’s platform helps sales teams identify the deal opportunities with the highest potential revenue contribution and prioritize them. Managers can coordinate how the process is carried out through a centralized interface. According to LeadSquared, its platform enables managers to assign each sales opportunity to the representative best equipped to close the deal.

The company says consolidating key parts of the customer acquisition workflow in a single platform provides several benefits. Using a single platform is theoretically more convenient than deploying multiple disparate tools, which eases sales teams’ work. Additionally, organizing data about sales opportunities in a centralized system makes it simpler for developers to access the data and use it to create automation workflows. 

LeadSquared’s focus also extends beyond the sales software segment. As part of its platform, the startup offers features that companies can use to increase the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. 

The platform detects opportune moments to promote a product, such as when customers visit the product pricing page on a company’s website. Marketers can use this information to deliver personalized promotions to users. To help marketing teams measure the effectiveness of promotional campaigns they manage using its platform, the company offers a set of pre-packaged analytics features.

LeadSquared doubled its revenues in the 12 months through March to $25.6 million, according to TechCrunch. The startup will use the $153 million funding round announced today to expand its international presence, build new features and acquire other startups. It’s planning to double its headcount over the next 18 months to support the effort.

“LeadSquared has shown a remarkable ability to scale and grow efficiently,” said WestBridge Capital co-founder and Managing Director Sumir Chadha. “Its core SaaS metrics are unique and best-in-class in the industry.”

LeadSquared’s plan to continue its revenue momentum may involve expanding its product portfolio with more cloud services. The startup recently launched a new tool called Ace that helps companies monitor the effectiveness of their sales efforts. It also provides a product for building web portals that, according to LeadSquared, lends itself to not only sales and marketing use cases but can also other tasks such as processing help desk requests.

The acquisitions that the startup plans to make following its latest funding round could help accelerate its product roadmap. Often, acquiring a company with an established product provides a faster way of expanding into a new market segment than building the necessary software capabilities in-house.

Image: LeadSquared