# Ex-Sprinklr VPs Quit, Built Kris@Work in 7 Months, Just Raised $3M — Here’s Why GTM SaaS Is Converging

URL: https://technosports.co.in/ex-sprinklr-vps-quit-built-kriswork/  
Published: 2026-02-25  
Updated: 2026-02-25  
Author: Raunak Saha

**Ex-Sprinklr VPs Quit, Built Kris@Work in 7 Months**: **Three Sprinklr senior VPs walked away from high-paying roles, bet everything on agentic AI, and closed their first enterprise deal in seven months.** [Kris@Work](https://inc42.com/buzz/exclusive-kriswork-bags-3-mn-to-offer-ai-powered-saas-platform-for-gtm-teams/), the AI-native Go-To-Market execution platform founded by Arun Singh, Ramakrishna Mallya, and Ananta Joshi, just raised **$3 million in seed funding** led by **Infoedge Ventures**, with participation from **JN Capital & Growth Advisory (Singapore)** and several angels.

The Bengaluru-based startup is building what founders call a “system-of-work and system-of-insights” — essentially, one platform to replace the 10+ SaaS tools GTM teams currently juggle.

This isn’t just another funding announcement. It’s a bet that **SaaS is converging** — and that revenue teams drowning in Salesforce, HubSpot, Gong, Outreach, ZoomInfo, and ChurnZero will pay to consolidate everything into a single AI-powered work companion.

## The Founding Story: From Sprinklr to Code in Under a Year

The Kris@Work founding team isn’t fresh out of college. They’re battle-tested SaaS operators:

- **Arun Singh** (CEO) — Senior VP at Sprinklr, built and scaled enterprise products
- **Ramakrishna Mallya** (CTO) — Senior VP at Sprinklr, led platform architecture
- **Ananta Joshi** (CPO) — Product leadership with deep UX/AI expertise

All three left Sprinklr with a thesis: **execution platforms, not point tools, would define the next era of enterprise work.** They founded Kris@Work in 2024, wrote their first line of code, and **signed their first enterprise customer within seven months** — a velocity that signals genuine demand, not just VC hype.

## The Problem: SaaS Fatigue Is Real (And Expensive)

Here’s what the average revenue team deals with in 2026:

| **Category** | **Tools Used** | **Annual Cost** |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **CRM** | Salesforce, HubSpot | $50–$150K |
| **Sales Engagement** | Outreach, SalesLoft, Apollo | $30–$80K |
| **Conversation Intelligence** | Gong, Chorus | $40–$100K |
| **Data Enrichment** | ZoomInfo, Clearbit, 6sense | $25–$75K |
| **Customer Success** | Gainsight, ChurnZero | $30–$80K |
| **Revenue Operations** | Clari, InsightSquared | $20–$60K |
| **Support & Services** | Zendesk, Intercom | $15–$50K |
| **TOTAL** | 10+ tools | **$210K–$595K/year** |

And that doesn’t include **integration costs, training overhead, data silos, or “SaaS sprawl fatigue”** — the phenomenon where teams stop using half their tools because context-switching kills productivity.

Kitty Agarwal, Partner at Infoedge Ventures, framed it perfectly: *“Sales and Revenue teams today are overwhelmed by a proliferation of disconnected point solutions, leading to legacy SaaS fatigue and a measurable decline in productivity.”*

## The Solution: Agentic Architecture + Contextual AI

Kris@Work isn’t just consolidating workflows — it’s reimagining them with **agentic architecture**. Here’s what that means:

**Traditional SaaS:** You click through 10 tools, manually copy data, switch contexts constantly

**Agentic AI SaaS:** AI agents automate repetitive tasks, surface insights proactively, and orchestrate workflows across the platform

The platform unifies:

- **Lead identification** (replacing ZoomInfo, 6sense)
- **Deal management** (replacing Salesforce workflows)
- **Account expansion** (replacing Gainsight, ChurnZero)
- **Real-time insights** (replacing Gong, Clari)
- **Governance & compliance** (built-in)

All powered by **contextual AI** that understands your business, learns from your data, and guides teams in real-time — not just after-the-fact dashboards.

As CTO Ramakrishna Mallya put it: *“Agentic architectures and context-aware AI are making platforms smarter and more unified. What once required multiple tools can now be achieved through a single platform, faster and with better results.”*

## The Market: Who’s Competing in Unified GTM Platforms?

Kris@Work is entering a **fast-evolving category** where established players are converging from different angles:

| **Company** | **Approach** | **Strength** | **Weakness** |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Salesforce** | CRM expanding into everything | Ecosystem lock-in, brand trust | Bloated, slow, expensive |
| **HubSpot** | All-in-one for SMBs | Easy to use, affordable | Weak for enterprise complexity |
| **Gong** | Conversation intelligence expanding | Best-in-class call analysis | Still a point tool, not a platform |
| **Clari** | Revenue operations platform | Strong forecasting | Narrow use case |
| **Kris@Work** | AI-native unified platform | Agentic AI, built for convergence | Unproven, zero brand recognition |

**The edge Kris@Work claims:** Unlike Salesforce (built pre-AI) or HubSpot (built for SMBs), Kris@Work is **AI-native from day one** and designed specifically for enterprise GTM teams who need both power and simplicity.

## The Customers: Early Traction Across Industries

Despite launching less than a year ago, Kris@Work is already being adopted in:

- **Technology** (SaaS companies, naturally)
- **Financial Services** (banks, fintechs)
- **Telecom** (complex enterprise sales cycles)
- **Automotive** (B2B suppliers, OEMs)

These industries share a common pain: **complex GTM motions** with fragmented tool stacks that create data silos and slow down revenue teams.

The fact that Kris@Work closed enterprise contracts in under seven months suggests product-market fit is real — enterprise sales cycles typically take 9–18 months, especially for unproven startups.

## The Roadmap: Beyond GTM, Toward a Universal Execution Layer

Here’s where it gets ambitious. Over the next three years, Kris@Work plans to **expand beyond GTM** into other enterprise functions using the same AI-native framework.

Think about what that means: if the platform can unify sales, marketing, customer success, support, and revenue ops, why stop there? Finance, HR, procurement, legal — every enterprise function suffers from SaaS sprawl.

CPO Ananta Joshi’s vision: *“Converging everything at work into a single intelligent window is how we see the future of work.”*

That’s not just a GTM platform. That’s a play to become the **operating system for enterprise work** — a unified execution layer where AI agents handle repetitive tasks and humans focus on strategic decisions.

## What the $3M Seed Will Fund

Kris@Work plans to deploy the fresh capital toward:

1. **Expanding enterprise customer base** — more pilots, more case studies, more revenue
2. **Strengthening go-to-market partnerships** — channel partners, system integrators, resellers
3. **Completing platform development** — four phases planned, with focus on deeper automation, multi-agent orchestration, and enterprise-scale deployments

**Translation:** They’re past prototype. They’re in “scale and sell” mode.

## The Risk: Can a 7-Month-Old Startup Beat Salesforce?

Let’s be honest: **replacing Salesforce is hard**. Enterprises don’t rip out CRMs lightly. The switching costs are enormous — data migration, retraining, workflow redesign, risk of disruption.

Kris@Work’s strategy seems to be **land and expand**:

- Start with one use case (e.g., sales engagement, customer success)
- Prove value with AI-powered insights and automation
- Gradually replace adjacent tools as trust builds
- Eventually become the system of record

This is the same playbook HubSpot used to fight Salesforce — start small, prove ROI, grow account-by-account.

The difference? HubSpot took 10+ years. Kris@Work is betting that **agentic AI accelerates this timeline** by delivering 10x value faster.

## The Verdict: A Bold Bet on Convergence

The thesis is simple: **SaaS is converging.** Large language models and agentic AI make it possible to build unified platforms that replace dozens of point tools. Revenue teams are exhausted. Enterprises want consolidation.

If Kris@Work executes, they’re building the **Salesforce + HubSpot + Gong + Gainsight killer** — all in one, AI-native, designed for the 2026+ world.

If they don’t, they’ll be one of a dozen “unified GTM platforms” that raised seed rounds, got some traction, and got acquired by Salesforce.

**The founders chose conviction over comfort.** They walked away from Sprinklr. They built fast. They raised smart money. Now comes the hard part: selling enterprises on replacing their entire GTM stack with a 7-month-old startup.

**For [Indian SaaS founders and enterprise software builders](https://technosports.co.in/startups/)**, Kris@Work’s playbook is worth studying: deep domain expertise + speed to first customer + AI-native thesis = venture fundability, even in a tough market.

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