Management tech startup SirionLabs gets $12.25 mn from Sequoia, others

SirionLabs Pvt. Ltd, an enterprise software-as-a-service provider that helps companies manage services contracts, has raised $12.25 million (Rs 82 crore) in a Series B round led by existing venture capital investor Sequoia Capital.

QualGro ASEAN Fund and Canopy Ventures also invested in this round, the Gurgaon- and Michigan-based company said in a statement.

"The primary use of this funding--from a research and development perspective--is to deepen our product's functionality and increase the levels of automation and artificial intelligence," Ajay Agrawal, co-founder and CEO of SirionLabs, told TechCircle.

Sequoia had, in 2014, invested $4.7 million in the company's Series A round.

Shailendra Singh, managing director at Sequoia Capital India Advisors, said SirionLabs has created a platform to manage strategic services engagements at large corporations and that the product-market fit has been strongly validated since the Series A investment.

SirionLabs was founded in 2012 by Agrawal and Claude Marais, who is the company's president. Agrawal had also earlier founded UnitedLex Corporation in 2006, a provider of legal process outsourcing and strategic legal technology solutions.

While the company is headquartered at Troy in Michigan, US, it has its engineering and offshore development centre in Gurgaon.

SirionLabs simplifies the delivery of IT and business process outsourcing services. It says its supplier governance product for buyers cuts the cost of supplier management by automating complex procedures across contract, performance, financial, relationship and risk management functions. It also has a revenue assurance product for suppliers.

SirionLabs sells its product for a minimum of $225,000 and thereafter charges its customers based on the number of users. Currently, the company has 20 paying customers including Bombardier, MasterCard, Vodafone and Western Union. Agrawal expects to rope in 25 more customers, who are in the final stages of conversion.

"Currently, our product's focus, pricing point and features are more suited for large companies. Over time we intend to develop a version for SMEs as well," said Agrawal.

"Likewise, we don't have any Indian customers as the sales cycle is slightly longer and the tendency to pay for value received is still not evolved. Sooner or later, we will be catering to Indian enterprises as well," he said, adding that it's supply-side platform is already being used by large Indian IT companies.

Agrawal said SirionLabs is on its way to achieving profitability. The company is generating $5 million in recurring revenue and expects to cross the $10-million mark by the end of this year and is likely to break even around the same time, he said.

SirionLabs has also inducted Sanish Mondkar, a former executive vice president and chief product officer at SAP, into its board. Mondkar will work with Sirion's product and engineering teams to accelerate the pace of innovation and product delivery. At SAP, he was responsible for global innovation strategy, technology and product delivery for all products in the procurement business.

"The lack of effective technology options for managing complex services engagements during the post-signature phase has been a painful challenge for most large corporations for a long time. Sirion represents the future of how Fortune 1000 organizations will manage their strategic services engagements," said Mondak.

Like this report? Sign up for our daily newsletter to get our top reports.