How Koot is helping early-stage startups sell smarter to global enterprises
Bengaluru startup Koot helps early-stage SaaS and AI startups break into enterprise sales with product-market fit validation, custom sales playbooks, and strategic partnerships.
Enterprise sales involve selling software subscriptions to large MNCs, where one needs to win over multiple departments—IT, finance, legal, and procurement, among others. While many early-stage startups develop products for enterprises, they often lack the expertise to sell or scale them effectively. The process can take weeks or even months, but the payoff is significantly higher.
Enter Koot—founded by Sankara Srinivasan and M Nageshwari Sankara in 2023—which helps young SaaS and AI startups unlock their enterprise sales.
“We show startups that there are multiple paths to the same goal and help them choose the right one based on their product, maturity, and target market,” Co-founder and CEO Srinivasan tells YourStory.
The Bengaluru-based business-to-business (B2B) startup offers product-market fit validation, sales playbooks, partnership channel-building services, and market research. Besides, it guides startups on everything from go-to-market planning to tapping into the Global Capability Centres (GCC) markets.
Further, it helps startups understand what customers need and how to refine their product, as well as position themselves profitably in the market, including indirect competitive benchmarking to see how they measure up against others.
“We ask founders, ‘What’s stopping your sale from closing?’, and work with them on that. Whether it’s the product feature set, pricing, or even encouraging founders to host events for traction—we give honest, real-time feedback from the ground,” Srinivasan says, adding that the bootstrapped startup has been profitable since February 2023.
Koot’s mission to guide startups is shaped by founder Srinivasan’s own experience as an entrepreneur. Having built three startups and sold his previous venture, RealtyCompass, to Quikr, he understands the challenges early-stage founders face. “I see each of our clients through that lens: like a fellow entrepreneur, so we go above and beyond just driving sales,” he says.
A three-time entrepreneur, Srinivasan has also held senior positions in Tech Mahindra and Airmeet. He has 15 years of experience in building strong System Integrator partnerships, creating go-to-market strategies for SaaS companies, and understanding GCCs to guide young startups as they navigate their early stages of business operations.
Driving enterprise partnerships through GCCs
Koot also helps its clients sell products and services to set up by GCC companies, including JP Morgan, Target, and Walmart Global Tech, which don’t sell in India but have thousands of employees here.
According to India's Ministry of Labour and Employment, the GCC market in India is growing rapidly, with over 1,700 GCCs employing nearly 1.9 million Indians. By 2030, the market is expected to reach $110 billion, with software exports leading the way. On the other hand, according to Gartner, global SaaS spending is expected to cross $299 billion by 2025, with an annual growth of 20%.
In the past, GCCs provided only basic support to MNCs, but today they contribute to strategic operations and innovation. This growth is driven by three factors: a wide talent pool, cost-effectiveness, and a supportive ecosystem of startups and service providers.
Seeing this growing demand among India’s GCCs, Koot has helped schedule over 400 partnership meetings for its clients in over two years—many with Fortune 2000 firms, listed companies, and government entities.
Koot has collaborated with LIFEX, Scrut Automation, Expertia, Revature, Tringapps, and JMI, among others. Many of these firms are backed by prominent investors such as Y Combinator and Lightspeed Venture Partners. With each client at a different stage of engagement, Koot has onboarded an average of 20 brand logos, either through direct relationships or strategic partnerships.
What’s next for Koot?
Koot’s founders actively engage in virtual discussions with enterprise leaders. “This gives us a clear sense of how companies operate, their preferences, who holds influence, and what they’re currently exploring. If a company is showing a certain signal or inclination, we already know what opportunities might open up,” Srinivasan says.
This signal-based approach helps Koot focus on the right opportunities, instead of using a broad, general strategy—often called the ‘spray and pray’ method—where companies reach out to many prospects without knowing if they’re actually interested or ready.
With the rise of GCCs, Koot has identified a strong service–market fit. “The services we provide to a few clients today are just as relevant to hundreds of other companies,” he says.
At present, the startup is focusing on building its team. “Our next step is to scale the team so we can support more clients and grow sustainably,” Srinivasan says.
Edited by Suman Singh