SaaS co Peel-Works raises $2M in Series A funding from Inventus, IDG; angels exit

SaaS and Big-Data analytics firm focused on sales force management domain Peel-Works Outsourcing Pvt. Ltd (Peel-Works) has raised $2 million (Rs 12 crore) in Series A investment round from Inventus Capital Partners and IDG Ventures India, as per a company statement.

The deal also has a secondary component where the angel investors who had backed the firm earlier, have exited.

The company had previously raised funding from the Indian Angel Network (IAN) in 2011, led by Sadeesh Raghavan and Srikant Sastri. While Sastri has exited Raghavan still remains on the firm's board.

Peel-Works has built a SaaS-based sales force transformation and analytics platform that provides presence and performance management capabilities for companies with large extended sales force. The company offers SaaS based product 9Yards along with a big-data analytics platform Genius. This product platform has been used by large and medium-size companies in FMCG, telecom amongst others that conduct their business using large indirect sales force.

Its technology solution organises information, computes performance based ratings and incentives and uses analytics to do predictive modeling and generate recommendations around promotions, skill and competency.

The funds raised in the latest funding round will be used to expand its existing offerings, hire senior management and ramp up technology and product development, the company said. Peel-Works will also expand further to global markets.

Parag Dhol from Inventus and Karan Mohla from IDG Ventures have joined the board as part of the investment.

"Peel-Works is a great example of a technology solution (cloud) tailored to Indian realities (fragmented distribution chain). Sachin, Deepak, Nidhi and team bring the experience and skills necessary to stitch together such solutions for blue-chip clients in the FMCG/consumer sectors. We, at Inventus look forward to working with the team to build an enduring company," said Parag Dhol, managing director, Inventus Capital.

Karan Mohla, vice president, IDG Ventures India, said, "The adoption of their unique multi-product SaaS and analytics platform by leading companies showcases their technology & analytics expertise. We are delighted to partner with Peel-Works and believe in their potential of building a global SaaS product company from India."

Peel-Works was set up in 2010 by Sachin Chhabra and Sandeep Lakhina. Chhabra, an alumni of St Stephens College and XLRI Jamshedpur, started his career in 1996 with Hindustan Unilever and after working with the FMCG giant for 14 years quit to start Peel-Works in 2010. Lakhina, a statistics grad from Lucknow University who has done MBA from IMT Ghaziabad besides Cox School of Business and an executive leadership programme at Wharton, is a former COO of Starcom MediaVest Group in South Asia.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)