Bengaluru,  Sales automation software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform LeadSquared on Tuesday announced it has raised $153 million in a Series C funding round from WestBridge Capital to become a new unicorn (valuation of $1 billion and above) in the country.

India is now home to more than 100 unicorns and these have raised over $100 billion in funding to date.

LeadSquared previously raised $32 million led by Gaja Capital in 2020, and $3 million during its Series A led by Stakeboat Capital in 2019.

Founded by Nilesh Patel, Prashant Singh and Sudhakar Gorti in 2011, LeadSquared has built a global customer relationship management (CRM) platform.

"With this financing, we will double down on growth investments in India and North America, start building in APAC and EMEA, add new offerings to our product portfolio, and fund acquisitions," said Nilesh Patel, CEO and Founder, LeadSquared.

"To support our growth, we plan to double our headcount in the next 18 months," he added.

LeadSquared has more than 2,000 customers, including high-growth organisations from edtech, higher education, financial services, healthcare, marketplaces, and others.

"Its focus on building an easy-to-use platform that transforms sales processes through automation delivering unparalleled efficiency, has significant potential for growth in the global market," said Sumir Chadha, Co-founder and Managing Director at WestBridge Capital.

WestBridge Capital manages approximately $8 billion of capital across funds in India and Mauritius.

Some of the product releases in the past year from LeadSquared include sales performance analytics and a suite of tools to digitise application processing.