SaaS Labs Raises $17 Million Series A: What Cloud Telephony Means for Your Workflow Automation Stack
Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash
- SaaS Labs raised $17 million in a Series A round in October 2021, led by Base 10 Partners and Eight Roads Ventures, to scale its cloud communication suite.
- The company's flagship products — JustCall and Helpwise — serve over 6,000 businesses globally, including Walmart, Jaguar, and Ernst & Young.
- JustCall connects natively with 70+ third-party business tools, making it one of the more integration-rich options among best saas tools for sales and support teams.
- SaaS Labs followed its Series A with a $42 million Series B in January 2022 led by Sequoia Capital India, bringing total disclosed funding to approximately $59 million.
What Happened
SaaS Labs, the cloud-based automation platform behind JustCall and Helpwise, raised $17 million in its maiden Series A funding round in October 2021. The round was co-led by Base 10 Partners and Eight Roads Ventures. Founded in 2016 by Gaurav Sharma, the company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with teams operating in India and the Philippines.
At the time of the raise, SaaS Labs already served over 6,000 companies worldwide — a client list that included major names like Walmart, Jaguar, Ernst & Young, and Divvy Homes. The $17 million was designated for three priorities: expanding the customer base, hiring globally, and investing in new products. The company planned to double its 70-member team by the end of 2021.
The core product lineup includes JustCall (a cloud telephony platform — think a full business phone system that runs in a browser tab, with no physical hardware required), Helpwise (a shared inbox built for customer-facing teams), and CallRoot (a call tracking and attribution tool). JustCall alone integrates natively with over 70 third-party business tools, allowing teams to connect it to CRMs, helpdesks, and other productivity software without writing a single line of custom code.
The company's trajectory didn't slow after this round. In January 2022, SaaS Labs raised an additional $42 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital India, bringing total disclosed funding to approximately $59 million. By 2023, the company had earned a ranking of #224 on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 North America list — a recognition reserved for companies demonstrating the fastest revenue growth in the tech sector.
Photo by Steve A Johnson on Unsplash
Why It Matters for Your Team's Productivity
This funding story is more than a headline about one company — it's a signal about where business communication is heading, and if you manage a remote or hybrid team, these trends touch you directly.
Here's a useful analogy: five years ago, your office phone system was physically bolted to the wall, managed by an IT vendor, and completely separate from your sales data. Today, that same capability can live in a browser tab, log every call automatically, sync with your CRM (Customer Relationship Management software — the tool that tracks your interactions with customers and prospects), and surface coaching insights for your managers. That's the promise of cloud telephony, and it's exactly what JustCall delivers. Because it plugs into over 70 third-party business tools, it slots into existing workflow automation pipelines rather than replacing them.
This integration depth is why investors took notice. Aditya Systla, Partner at Eight Roads Ventures, explained the investment thesis clearly: "The rapid adoption of productivity enhancing tools by businesses and the strong secular trends that are driving contact centers to the cloud is becoming a theme that we believe has huge potential. SaaS Labs has grown significantly over the last few years and is well positioned to serve the needs of the SMB segment."
Chris Zeoli, Principal at Base 10 Partners, pointed to a pain point that will feel familiar to any small business owner managing a distributed team: "Business communications are critical for delivering a strong customer experience but remain a major challenge to manage at scale for inbound and outbound communication. SaaS Labs' modern, customizable communication system is particularly exciting for international sales and support calls."
For small businesses, that problem is very concrete. Team collaboration breaks down quickly when call data lives in three different spreadsheets, inboxes are unassigned, and managers have no visibility into what's actually being said on customer calls. A centralized cloud phone and shared inbox platform removes a whole category of friction — and unlike legacy systems that required expensive on-premise hardware, these tools scale up or down with a few clicks.
CEO Gaurav Sharma captured the post-pandemic context well: "Remote work has made sales even more challenging than before. Sales leaders can't just rely on charisma and instinct to get teams on track anymore." That observation extends well beyond sales. Anyone managing customer-facing workflows — support, onboarding, billing, renewals — faces the same visibility gap when teams go remote.
SaaS Labs' placement at #224 on Deloitte's Fast 500 in 2023 confirms this isn't a niche solution. It reflects a broader shift in how small businesses evaluate best saas tools for their communication stacks — prioritizing integration depth, cloud-native flexibility, and AI readiness over the legacy systems they grew up with. If your team still relies on scattered direct messages, personal email inboxes, or a phone tree held together with manual processes, this funding story is a useful nudge: the tools to fix that are accessible, affordable, and increasingly intelligent.
The AI Angle
The AI dimension of SaaS Labs' story came into focus just weeks after the Series A closed. In November 2021, the company launched JustCall IQ, an AI-powered conversation intelligence platform. Conversation intelligence — software that automatically transcribes, analyzes, and scores calls — had previously been available only to enterprise teams with large budgets. JustCall IQ brought that capability to SMBs.
For teams already using workflow automation to handle repetitive tasks (routing tickets, triggering follow-up emails, updating CRM records automatically), conversation intelligence adds a meaningful new layer. It identifies patterns in call data that would take a human analyst hours to find: how often a specific objection comes up, which reps dominate conversations versus listen, where calls stall before a close. That's actionable coaching data without requiring a dedicated operations hire.
Pair JustCall with a shared inbox tool like Helpwise, and you have an integrated communication layer covering both voice and text. Teams wanting to push further into automation can connect these tools to platforms like Zapier or Make (formerly Integromat) to trigger cross-app workflows — for example, automatically creating a support ticket every time a call ends without resolution. That kind of end-to-end workflow automation is what separates reactive teams from proactive ones.
What Should You Do? 3 Action Steps
Before signing up for any new productivity software, map out exactly where your team's communication currently breaks down. Are inbound calls going unlogged? Is your shared inbox a tangle of unassigned conversations? JustCall's 70+ native integrations mean it likely connects to tools you already use — but that value only materializes if you know which specific gaps you're solving. Spend 30 minutes writing down your five biggest communication friction points before evaluating any platform.
If your team handles customer calls, run a 30-day trial of JustCall or a comparable cloud telephony platform. Make sure everyone working remotely has the basics covered for clear audio quality — a good pair of noise canceling headphones makes a measurable difference on customer calls and is far cheaper than losing a deal to a bad connection. Encourage your team to log every call through the platform so you actually accumulate data to analyze at the end of the trial period.
Once your calls are consistently logged in a cloud system, activate AI analysis. Tools like JustCall IQ automatically score calls, flag coaching moments, and surface trends across your entire team — turning raw call recordings into structured business tools that managers can actually act on. Start with your highest-volume call types (sales demos or tier-1 support calls) and review AI-flagged conversations weekly. This creates a feedback loop that improves team performance without requiring managers to listen to every call manually.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is JustCall worth it for a small business with fewer than 10 employees in 2026?
JustCall can be a strong fit for small teams precisely because it doesn't require hardware, IT staff, or long-term contracts to set up. For a team under 10 people handling sales or support calls, the value comes from centralizing call logs, integrating with your CRM, and getting visibility into conversations that would otherwise be invisible to management. That said, if your team makes very few outbound calls and mostly communicates via chat or email, Helpwise (the shared inbox product) might be the better starting point. Always verify current pricing on the official website, as plans and features change.
How does SaaS Labs' JustCall compare to other cloud phone systems for remote sales teams?
JustCall competes in a market that includes tools like Aircall, Dialpad, and RingCentral. Its notable differentiator is integration breadth — 70+ native connectors — which is important for sales teams already using a specific CRM or helpdesk. SaaS Labs serving clients like Walmart, Jaguar, and Ernst & Young suggests it can handle enterprise-scale call volumes, but its SMB pricing and setup simplicity make it accessible to smaller teams as well. The best comparison is always a hands-on trial against your specific tool stack.
What workflow automation features should I look for in a cloud telephony platform?
The most practical workflow automation features in a cloud phone platform include: automatic call logging to your CRM (so reps don't have to manually enter notes), post-call trigger actions (like creating a follow-up task or sending a recap email automatically), call routing rules (directing inbound calls based on team availability or caller data), and SMS automation for follow-up sequences. AI-powered features like call transcription and sentiment analysis — which JustCall IQ provides — are increasingly common and add significant value for coaching and quality assurance without extra headcount.
Can a shared inbox tool like Helpwise replace a dedicated helpdesk for a growing startup?
For early-stage startups handling under a few hundred support tickets per month, a shared inbox like Helpwise can cover most of the functionality that a dedicated helpdesk like Zendesk or Freshdesk provides — without the cost or complexity. Key features to verify before making that call: does it support ticket assignment and status tracking, does it log history per customer, and does it integrate with your existing business tools? If your support volume is growing quickly or you need SLA (Service Level Agreement — a formal commitment to respond within a set time window) tracking, a purpose-built helpdesk will scale better long-term.
Why are investors putting so much money into cloud communication and contact center SaaS right now?
The $17 million Series A SaaS Labs raised in 2021 — and the $42 million Series B that followed in January 2022 — reflect a sustained investor thesis around remote work driving permanent demand for cloud-native communication tools. The CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service — cloud-hosted call center software) market was expanding rapidly as businesses moved away from physical phone systems. Investors are drawn to horizontal productivity software targeting sales and support workflows because of high recurring revenue potential and strong net dollar retention (meaning customers tend to spend more over time as their teams grow). SaaS Labs' ranking at #224 on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 in 2023 validated that growth story with real revenue data.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. Tool features and pricing may change. Always verify current details on the official website.
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