In an exclusive interaction with StartupTalky, Prashant Singh, COO and Co-founder of LeadSquared, discusses the company’s journey from its early days as a marketing platform to becoming a new-age SaaS CRM platform. He shares insights into building a high-growth SaaS venture, LeadSquared’s journey to becoming a unicorn in India, and its expansion across key sectors like BFSI, EdTech, and healthcare. Singh also talks about the company’s focus on AI integration, global expansion plans, and IPO readiness. He further reflects on hiring strategies, customer retention efforts, and how his passion for endurance sports influences his leadership approach.
StartupTalky: What was the vision behind starting LeadSquared, and how has it evolved over the years?
Mr. Singh: LeadSquared was founded with the vision of helping businesses streamline marketing, sales, and customer engagement. From 2011 to 2015, we built a marketing platform enabling marketers to engage and nurture leads before passing them to sales. However, gaps in lead handling impacted conversions, prompting us to expand into lead and sales management, which gained strong traction, particularly in education and EdTech. We further launched our automation platform and mobile app.
Between 2019 and 2024, we entered the US and Middle East markets while also becoming the preferred solution for high-growth BFSI organisations in India, spanning securities, broking, and insurance. This expansion, coupled with Series B and C funding in 2021 and 2022, fueled rapid growth and marked our entry into the unicorn club.
Today, we continue expanding across BFSI, education, healthcare, digital natives, and manufacturing, offering end-to-end solutions for the entire customer lifecycle, whether through application journeys, LOS in lending, or Service CRM for customer experience. Our solutions thrive in high-volume, high-velocity sales environments, with India and the US as our primary markets.
StartupTalky: How does LeadSquared differentiate itself from its competitors in CRM and the marketing automation space?
Mr. Singh: Unlike traditional CRMs, LeadSquared is a vertical-focused sales execution and CX platform designed to enhance revenue operations. Our differentiation lies in our ability to provide industry-specific solutions that address the unique sales and engagement challenges of different sectors while maintaining customer-centricity.
For example, in BFSI, we offer solutions such as Lending Cloud and Loan Origination Systems (LOS) that digitise the entire customer journey. In education, we optimise student enrollment journeys by automating admissions and engagement. Similarly, in healthcare, we enhance patient acquisition and retention through personalised outreach and automated follow-ups.
StartupTalky: With a target of profitability by FY26 and IPO readiness, what key steps are you taking to drive growth?
Mr. Singh: Our path to profitability and IPO readiness revolves around three key pillars: market expansion, product innovation, and operational efficiency. We are doubling down on our presence in high-growth international markets, particularly in the US, where our solutions have gained strong traction in the Education and Healthcare sectors. We continue to strengthen our vertical-centric capabilities by refining products for BFSI, healthcare, education, and digital-native businesses.
We plan to optimise expenditure, particularly cloud costs, which constitute a significant portion of our outlays. Simultaneously, we are investing in core products like lead management and help desk solutions, alongside integrating AI capabilities.
Our recent funding rounds have enabled us to scale strategically, and we are committed to building a resilient, scalable business that is well-positioned for long-term growth.
StartupTalky: How is LeadSquared utilising AI and automation to enhance its product offerings?
Mr. Singh: At LeadSquared, we have integrated AI into our product ecosystem. The core areas where we see demand and acceptance are predicting the purchasing potential of a prospect. This is a fundamental and complex problem impacting the top and bottom line for our customers, and we are running multiple early-stage projects in this direction.
Another impactful area where AI is improving our platform is in customer interactions and support. Our AI-powered Knowledge Base Bot can automatically respond to customer queries by pulling relevant information from a trained knowledge base, reducing interaction load by up to 60%. Other features like Ticket Summarization analyse conversations to tag issues, detect sentiment, and recommend next actions.
For internal teams, our in-house AI assistant provides prompt assistance with various inquiries related to our products and services, ensuring efficient internal team support.
StartupTalky: What have been the biggest challenges and opportunities in expanding LeadSquared across industries like EdTech and BFSI?
Mr. Singh: Expanding into sectors like EdTech and BFSI has been both rewarding and challenging. One of the primary challenges has been navigating the regulatory landscape, especially in BFSI, where compliance and security are critical. In EdTech, scaling platforms to support high user volumes has been a key challenge.
However, these challenges have also presented significant opportunities. In EdTech, we have helped in end-to-end student journeys on a single platform. Similarly, in BFSI, we have played a crucial role in accelerating loan disbursements and improving customer onboarding with our Loan Origination System.
The growing need for efficiency and customer engagement in these sectors has fueled our expansion, allowing us to become a preferred solution provider in high-growth industries.
StartupTalky: How has the recent funding shaped LeadSquared’s growth plans and long-term vision?
Mr. Singh: We have strategically invested in expanding our product portfolio, strengthening vertical-centric product capabilities and scaling our presence in key international markets like the US. It has also enabled us to enhance our AI and automation capabilities, ensuring that we continue to deliver cutting-edge solutions to our customers.
Additionally, we are using this capital to expand our sales and support teams, improve our go-to-market strategy, and drive customer success initiatives. With a long-term vision of becoming the leading sales execution and CX platform globally, we are leveraging these investments to scale sustainably while keeping profitability in focus.
StartupTalky: What markets are you focusing on for global expansion, and what hurdles have you had to overcome?
Mr. Singh: We have identified the US, the Middle East, Australia, and Southeast Asia as key markets for global expansion, as they align well with our focus industries, which include education and healthcare.
The primary hurdles in global expansion include navigating regulatory requirements, adapting to market-specific customer behaviors, and establishing brand credibility in new geographies. To address these challenges, we have localised our offerings and strengthened our on-ground sales and support teams. This approach has helped us scale sustainably in international markets.
StartupTalky: How do you approach hiring and retaining top talent in India’s competitive SaaS ecosystem?
Mr. Singh: Talent acquisition and retention are critical to our success, especially in India’s highly competitive SaaS landscape. We prioritise hiring individuals who align with our culture of innovation and customer-centricity.
We offer an environment where tech professionals and problem-solvers can tackle complex challenges to make a meaningful impact. The nature of our work provides continuous opportunities for engineers and innovators to push boundaries and solve real-world industry problems, making it an exciting and fulfilling space to grow.
Our leadership is committed to maintaining transparency, recognising contributions, and providing employees with the resources they need to succeed. By building a strong employer brand and a culture of ownership, we have been able to attract and retain some of the best minds in the SaaS industry.
StartupTalky: What initiatives are in place to enhance customer success and retention at LeadSquared?
Mr. Singh: We have always been customer-obsessed, with a strong commitment to delighting our customers and serving as a true partner in their growth. Beyond our scalable SaaS platform, we also provide unmatched reliability and support, ensuring long-term success for our clients.
LeadSquared has evolved into a no-code platform so our customers can configure and use our solutions without dependency and without having to code. Our automation-first approach, native mobile apps, and AI-driven decision-making set us apart from generic CRMs, allowing businesses to drive efficiency, reduce lead leakage, and maximise conversions.
StartupTalky: You are a seasoned entrepreneur and a marathon runner. How has your experience in endurance sports influenced your leadership style and decision-making at LeadSquared?
Mr. Singh: Running for me is about consistency and perseverance. In building LeadSquared, this translated to focusing on sustainable growth rather than chasing quick wins.
Endurance sports instil mental toughness that’s invaluable in entrepreneurship. There are moments in both running and business when giving up seems like the rational choice. Whether it’s the final few kilometres of a marathon or year three of a startup facing market challenges, the ability to push through discomfort has been crucial.
Shalini Rath
