Venture Talk: LinkSquares
In an effort to highlight IDEA’s resources, impact, and amazing ventures that go through the program, we’ve started Venture Talk, a quarterly feature on one venture and their path through IDEA and beyond. With this initiative, we hope to be able to briefly pause and reflect on the real impact the program has on its entrepreneurs and ventures, and how we can continue moving forward into the ever changing, dynamic space.
I recently got in touch with alumnus Vishal Sunak (COE’07), co-founder & CEO of LinkSquares, a venture that launched with the aid of our program in 2016. Here’s what he had to share not only about his love for IDEA, but the impact the IDEA resources and the Northeastern entrepreneurial community have had on his venture.
Sunak, who graduated from the COE in 2007, had read about Northeastern starting a venture-program from the Alumni newsletters. He kept this precious information at the back of his mind until 2015, when he and his co-founder decided that their idea was worth seeing to fruition. They soon joined IDEA and launched from the program only a few months later, in 2016.
They initially sought out our program because of the many resources available to ventures, but found out later that the instant connections and the support provided were the most valuable aspects of IDEA.
“IDEA provided the foundation for us to think about what it really takes to bring a product to market.”
What is LinkSquares?
A difficult and lengthy project on their last job led to a very interesting business problem that needed to be solved. Then, started LinkSquares, a SaaS that offers an AI-powered tool to automate the reading and understanding of executed business and legal contracts. The software uses a form of natural language processing and is extremely reliable. It is able to surface all the key pieces in an executed contract and can understand thousands of variations of a single component.
With this software, companies are more able to bring some basic projects in-house, like reading and understanding contracts, instead of outsourcing these tasks to expensive law firms. In the end, they are saving money, are more self-sufficient, and are operating more efficiently as a whole.
IDEA Resources
“Northeastern and IDEA gave us instant connections and the support we needed, which was amazing!”
Back when LinkSquares was going through the stage-gate process, it had received $10,000 in Gap Funding to improve the security of their app. From the beginning, they had benefited from the support provided by the Venture Mentoring Network Program at Northeastern.
What Now?
LinkSquares recently closed out its seed-round of funding, with around 2.16 million dollars raised. The venture currently has over 50 customers and is growing at an incredible pace. The founders’ top-priority is to guarantee their service matches the customers’ needs while continually offering the best experience possible.
“IDEA provided the foundation for me to think about what it really takes to bring a product to market.”
