Everstage Snags $30 Mn To Automate Sales Commission Processes

Enterprise SaaS startup Everstage has raised $30 Mn (around INR 252 Cr) in a Series B funding round led by Eight Roads Ventures.

The round also saw participation from existing investors — Elevation Capital and 3one4 Capital.

The Chennai-based startup plans to use the fresh funds for product innovation and improving its in-house services for enhanced customer experience, said Siva Rajamani, cofounder and CEO of Everstage.

Additionally, Everstage has also announced an INR 5 Cr employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) buyback programme to reward its early employees. While Everstage has 200 staffers on its payroll, it’s unclear how many of them would benefit from the ESOP buyback scheme.

Founded in 2020 by Rajamani, a former Freshworks executive, and Vivek Suriyamoorthy,  Everstage offers a platform that enables enterprises, and their sales teams, to keep track of how much they’re earning in commission.

Its flagship product Crystal can forecast in real-time how much commission sales representatives can earn from closing a deal, the company claims.

The sales performance management startup also plans to roll out an AI–based product by the name of AI Agent Creation Studio that will enable revenue and operations teams to build and customise their own AI assistants.

“These AI agents will be capable of performing tasks such as sales performance analysis, plan building, and modeling recommendations, further streamlining the sales operations process,” said the company, in a statement.

Everstage, which caters to several global Fortune 1000 companies including the likes of GrayTV, Wiley, Diligent, Trimble and Paychex, claims it clocked a 300% year-on-year growth in its revenue last year.

Further, the company says that its clients saw a 2X jump in their deals after integrating Everstage for their sales teams. To enhance the customer experience, the startup has appointed former Glassdoor executive Kelly McGuire as vice president of its customer success division.

Back in April 2022, Everstage raised $13 Mn in its Series A funding round led by Elevation Capital. Prior to that, in 2021, the B2B SaaS startup secured a seed funding of almost $2 Mn from 3oneCapital and a clutch of angel investors.

The funding for Everstage comes at a time when investors are becoming increasingly wary and holding back on investments in SaaS startups due to fears of slow growth and rock-bottom valuations. 

Homegrown SaaS startups raised $1.56 Bn in 2023 — a staggering 70% decline from $5.3 Bn in 2022, according to Inc42 data. In the first six months of 2024, they managed to strike deals worth $915 Mn.

Mega deals ($100 Mn and above) all but vanished for Indian SaaS startups, declining 82% from 11 in 2022 to 2 each in 2023 and H1 FY24.