[Tech30] Looking to make a sale? Lucep will do it for you

Over the past decade, dramatic changes in both the way businesses work and consumer behaviour have made for a more complex sales process.

As the ways to acquire customers have evolved, so have customers’ expectations from businesses. In a nutshell, sales conversion is still not an easy job and businesses need to be smart enough to tap the lead first.

Launched in Januray 2016 by two childhood friends Kaiesh Vohra (34) and Zal Dastur (33), Singapore-headquartered Lucep, with a regional office in Bengaluru, claims to provide an amalgamation of solutions to help businesses improve the conversion rates of their online prospects. Lucep works in any region that the website does, thus allowing for a truly mobile sales team.

“The platform’s primary function is to help companies make more sales. We do that by providing software on small business websites, a tool that does automatic CRO (conversion rate optimisation). It will sit inside the website, try to engage with users, learn from their interaction and eventually, create leads,” says Kaiesh, CEO of Lucep.

Kaiesh has a technology background with a B.Sc (Hons) degree in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science. He had previously worked with Accenture UK and Credit Suisse Singapore.

Zal did his Master’s in International Business and Marketing from Monash University, and had previously worked with Fulford PR Singapore as well as multiple startups.

He explains that creating leads is just one part of the business; the other half is actioning the leads. That’s where the app comes in; it helps distribute those leads among the sales team, where they can begin acting on them with information and insights.

According to the platform, Lucep’s key features include instant lead notifications, lead-specific analytics, artificial intelligence, smarter lead allocation, comprehensive weekly sales reporting and seamless CRM integration – they are the processes that complete the solution.

It further states that responding to leads within the first five minutes of an enquiry increases lead qualification rates twentyonefold. Lead-specific analytics give savvy sales teams the insight to engage with leads at their point and level of interest, and take them through the funnel from indecision to the stage of being satisfied customer.

Lucep’s artificial intelligence engine, Sales Gorilla, helps teams engage with the site’s unique visitors. It’s just another way Lucep helps boost your conversion rate. Smarter lead allocation helps the team member who is immediately available get the lead and the analytics needed to close the sale within minutes.

Its weekly analytics and site-tracking report ensures your sales department starts every Monday informed and ready to close more deals. The platform can either store lead information in its proprietary call-list, or sync with major CRM tools like SalesForce, Netsuite and Sugar.

Bootstrapped hero

The platform started out with personal savings of half-a-million dollars invested in team buiding and product formation.

In the past nine months, the bootstrapped platform claims to have acquired 470 registered customers, with 150 active weekly users.

“We are yet to make any marketing expenses. All the registered and active users have been acquired completely organically,” says Kaiesh.

Startwood hotels, FX Kart, Evoma, KLOC Technologies, CIO Matrix and Purple Click are some of the many global clients that are using the Lucep platform.

Following a subscription-based revenue model, the company is targeting revenues between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 1 crore per annum.

The team of 15 claims to grow at a CMGR (compound monthly growth rate) of 20 percent. “In the next 12 months, we aim to have over 1,000 registered users, with much higher engagement figures,” says Kaiesh.

The company is also looking to raise $1million in Q1 of 2017.

Market size  

According to Kaiesh, there are 10 million sites focused on small and medium businesses offering B2B solutions. Of the total websites, around 90 percent are using some kind of software analytics for sales purposes.

Kaiesh estimates the market size in this particular category to be no less than $10 billion, growing at a rate of $8 million a month.

In this segment, Marketizator, SumoMe, OptinMonster, Leadpages, ThriveLeads and many other platfroms offer sales conversion services. However, each differs with the others in various respects.

Sales is a crucial aspect for any company and it is still a manual process to a great extent. Lucep and its like are putting an interesting spin to this by automating a major chunk of the process through analytics, CRM and AI solutions.

What does this induction mean for Lucep

"Joining the ranks of DailyRounds and Niki.ai in recognition of our potential by YourStory is a great measure of our maturity, and helps in continuing the pressure on the Lucep team to the perform. YourStory reaches millions of readers a day, and they expect a level of curation which signifies that we have a higher probability of being in the 1% of startups that have the right combination of product, team, grit and determination to make it happen. We're honoured to get here, and our resolve is strengthened to take it much further," says Kaeish.

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