Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) today announced Vishal Sunak, CEO and co-founder of LinkSquares — provider of the fastest and most comprehensive AI-powered SaaS contract lifecycle management and analysis tool — has been named an Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2020 New England Award finalist. Now in its 34th year, the Entrepreneur Of The Year program honors entrepreneurial business leaders whose ambitions deliver innovation, growth and prosperity as they build and sustain successful businesses that transform our world. Sunak was selected as one of 30 finalists by a panel of independent judges.
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“From Day 1 at LinkSquares, we’ve been an artificial intelligence company”
Award winners will be announced through special virtual events on October 6 and join a lifelong community of esteemed Entrepreneur Of The Year alumni from around the world. This year, unstoppable entrepreneurs who have provided extraordinary support for their communities, employees and others during the COVID-19 crisis will also be recognized for their courage, resilience and ingenuity, including LinkSquares customers and fellow Massachusetts finalists Tamr and Morphic Therapeutic.
Sunak founded LinkSquares with a goal of building great products to improve how businesses operate. In 2019, the company posted 300% year-over-year financial growth, attracting such notable and diverse customers as Twilio, Fitbit, VMware and DraftKings. In February 2020, Sunak closed an additional $14.5 million in Series A financing to capitalize on the growing demand for automated contract analysis. Previously, he held leadership posts in sales, operations and engineering for such names as InsightSquared, Backupify and BAE Systems.
LinkSquares is solving a major pain point for businesses and legal counsel alike who crave a modern solution to the complexities of contract management. Part of the ingenuity of its technology is machine learning within its software, a first-of-its-kind approach created to quickly read contract text in order to find, extract and format crucial metadata. With more than 800,000 contracts under management, LinkSquares helps its hundreds of customers understand and better mitigate risks and liabilities in minutes, not months.
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“From Day 1 at LinkSquares, we’ve been an artificial intelligence company,” said Sunak. “We use AI to improve every part of the contract lifecycle and give our customers a single, integrated platform that makes the entire contract process easier, more efficient, and data-driven. We continue to innovate each day to help our customers power their business more effectively and improve outcomes. It’s a tremendous honor to have this value recognized by Ernst & Young.”
Entrepreneur Of The Year is one of the preeminent award programs for leaders of high-growth companies. The nominees are evaluated based on six criteria: overcoming adversity; financial performance; societal impact and commitment to building a values-based company; innovation; and talent management. Since its launch, the program has expanded to recognize business leaders in more than 145 cities in over 60 countries around the world.
Regional award winners are eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Awards to be announced in November during a virtual awards gala. The Entrepreneur Of The Year National Overall Award winner will then move on to compete for the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Award in June 2021.
Entrepreneur Of The Year Award winners become lifetime members of a global, multi-industry community of entrepreneurs, with exclusive, ongoing access to the experience, insight and wisdom of program alumni and other ecosystem members — all supported by vast EY resources.
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