SquadStack scores $17.5 Mn from Bertelsmann, Chiratae and Blume

SquadStack, a SaaS-enabled talent marketplace for sales, has raised $17.5 million in a round led by Bertelsmann India Investments, along with existing investors Chiratae Ventures and Blume Ventures.

With the new fundraise, SquadStack aims to hire top talent and strengthen its workforce for expansion. Chiratae and Blume had led a $5 million Series A round in the Noida-based company in September 2020.

Seven-year-old SquadStack partners with existing sales talent and homemakers, allowing them to work from anywhere with the help of a smartphone. The firm helps consumer businesses that sell high-ticket products and services across segments such as brokerage, lending, insurance, e-commerce and edtech.

Currently, it operates in Noida, Gurugram, Bengaluru, Goa and Mumbai, and it will expand to Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune in the coming months. Founded by Apurv Agrawal, Kanika Jain, Rishabh Ladha, and Vikas Gulati, the company claims that its decentralised community of sales experts sell to 200K leads daily on behalf of top brands including Upstox, Razorpay, ZestMoney, Edelweiss, Delhivery, and Classplus.

In 2018, SquadStack launched its sales automation platform SquadIQ in the Indian market. A year later, SquadStack launched a similar offering in the US real estate market, which helped broker teams to boost revenue and bring efficiency.

On the lines of last year, SaaS platforms have been able to score decent funding in the ongoing calendar year. As per Fintrackr’s data, SaaS was the second top most segment in terms of the number of funding during H1 2022. More than 90 startups in the segment mopped up $1.76 billion during the first half of the current calendar year.

Bertelsmann India, the lead investor of this round, had recently announced an India-focused fund of $500 million to invest in early and growth stage startups. Bertelsmann has invested in several startups including Eruditus, Licious, Shiprocket, Pepperfry, AgroStar, Lets Transport, Lendingkart, Rupeek, among others.