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"SaaS as we know it is DEAD." This might sound controversial, but as Manav Garg explains, the old model of simple workflow automation is being rapidly superseded. AI agents are now capable of executing complex tasks based on simple commands, fundamentally changing how businesses operate and what they expect from technology. Manav Garg is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Together Fund, an operator-led VC firm managing over $250M AUM and backing ambitious early-stage Indian SaaS and AI startups. Before this, he founded Eka Software Solutions in 2004, building it over nearly two decades into a global leader in commodity management software. He scaled Eka to $34 million in revenue with $9 million in profit by 2014, raised over $55 million, navigated a complex pivot to the cloud, and ultimately exited the company. He is also a co-founder of SaaSBOOMi, Asia's largest SaaS community, and is passionate about building India as a Product Nation. Key Insights from the Conversation:
Welcome to Top of the Morning by Mint, your weekday newscast that brings you five major stories from the world of business. It's Wednesday, February 5, 2025. This is Nelson John, let's get started. Despite India's solid track record of fiscal discipline and a narrowing fiscal deficit, international rating agencies like Moody's and Fitch remain cautious about upgrading India's sovereign rating. Currently, Fitch Ratings assigns India a 'BBB-' with a stable outlook, which is the lowest investment grade, suggesting good credit quality but vulnerability to adverse conditions. Similarly, Moody's and S&P rate India at 'Baa3' and 'BBB-', respectively. This contrasts with China's 'A+' and the US's 'AA+', indicating higher credit qualities and lower default risks. The hesitation to upgrade India's rating affects the cost of borrowing and investment attractiveness, crucial for economic growth, N Madhavan reports. Critics, including UNCTAD, argue that international rating agencies may be biased against emerging economies. Despite significant growth, robust financial systems, and strong foreign investor interest, India's rating has remained unchanged for two decades. India is set to develop its own AI chip, aiming to enhance its technological independence and global competitiveness. This initiative, led by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in collaboration with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-Dac) and the National e-Governance Division, focuses on creating a chip using the open-source 'Risc-V' architecture. The goal is to support academic researchers and startups in building foundational AI models, Shouvik Das reports. High-level discussions have involved not only Indian experts but also US Big Tech firms and Taiwan's TSMC, to craft a chip fully made in India by 2027, leveraging local talents and resources. This move is part of a broader strategy under the India AI Mission, aiming to establish a domestic chip production capability that reduces reliance on foreign technology, particularly in light of recent geopolitical tensions and supply chain vulnerabilities highlighted by US restrictions.Rashmi Saluja's tenure as chairperson at Religare Enterprises may be nearing an end amid a contentious takeover battle. Despite efforts to stabilize the company post-bankruptcy, about one-third of its investors have voted against her reappointment ahead of the upcoming AGM on February 7th. The Delhi High Court has also declined Saluja any interim relief to halt the AGM proceedings. Investors, including the Burman family who owns 25.1% of Religare, have expressed a desire for new management to steer the company towards growth. With 31.85% of shareholders, including financial firms and mutual funds, voting against her, Saluja's reappointment seems unlikely unless there is an unexpectedly high turnout in her favour from smaller shareholders. The National Medical Commission (NMC) is gearing up to elevate India's postgraduate medical education to global standards by forming Specialty Expert Committees (SEC) for each speciality. Priyanka Sharma spoke to Dr B. Srinivas, secretary at the NMC, who said that these committees will develop model curriculums, assess educational institutions, and address academic needs, aiming to standardize and improve the quality of speciality courses across the country. This initiative, highlighted in a letter to medical colleges reviewed by Mint, also involves these expert committees in handling student grievances and other speciality-specific requirements. The NMC has called for nominations of faculty members ready to join this effort, with a deadline for submissions set for within 15 days. The move comes as part of a broader effort to address the disproportionate doctor-patient ratios in India by boosting both graduate and postgraduate medical manpower. Wingify, started in 2009 in Delhi, has grown significantly, boasting a global customer base and robust revenue growth, reaching ₹288.61 crore in 2023-24. This bootstrapped startup's success caught private equity firm Everstone's eye, especially Wingify's self-sufficient growth and strong technology base. This acquisition aligns with Everstone's focus on technology-driven firms, following a similar investment in MediaMint, Shadma Shaikh reports. The deal not only marks a significant phase for Wingify but also stands out as a successful bootstrapped venture in the SaaS space, showcasing that startups can achieve substantial growth without external funding. This event is seen as a boost for the Indian SaaS ecosystem, reflecting a mature, profitable company making a significant impact globally.
Artificial intelligence will affect all facets of modern-day business in some way or another. But it will most definitely go a few layers deeper with the type of companies whose job is to be a record of business' today – SaaS companies.SaaS as a business model is investment-heavy in the beginning. It's risky to build, it takes time to build, and it takes skill to build. But if successful, it is a cash cow. Think of the biggest SaaS companies – Salesforce, Microsoft and Adobe. They spent years building and iterating on software products. And today, all of these products they poured money into make them billions of dollars.But there's a perfect storm that has been turning the tides, and the incumbents have seen the signs and have jumped at it to secure their advantage and not lose out to upstarts.The one thing about SaaS products is that they have to be constantly sold to their customers. But with AI, the entire loop becomes a solution that makes the customer's life easier. SaaS products integrated with AI will be bought because they'll solve the use case of its customers specifically. Companies which usually resort to different pricing strategies for small additional features will have to reconsider and be aligned to deliver outcomes for their customer, not a feature list which is based on purchasing licences to gain access.And in all of this, what happens to the Indian SaaS companies as the AI wave ushers in?In episode 21 of Two by Two, hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar sat down with guests Sumanth Raghavendra, CEO and co-founder of Presentations.AI and one of the co-founders of The Ken, and Sidu Ponnappa, CEO and co-founder of Realfast and former managing director of Gojek India.This is a '30-minute version' of the full conversation we had published on 12 December 2024. Full episodes are available to Premium subscribers on The Ken app and Apple Podcasts with a separate monthly subscription.A Premium subscription to The Ken will get you access to our long-form stories, premium newsletters, podcasts, and visual stories in addition to Two by Two.If you'd just like access to Two by Two, you can do that too by getting a Premium subscription to Two by Two on Apple Podcasts.Tune in to the latest Two by Two podcast to listen to an engrossing discussion on how AI will shake up SaaS models across the world and what's in store for India's SaaS companies.——Additional reading:The AI apocalypse is coming: Are SaaS companies ready?BarbAIrians at the Gate: The Financial Opportunity of AIThe End of the SaaS Era: Rethinking software's role in business——This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Mixing and mastering for this episode was done by Rajiv CN.Write to us with what you thought of the episode at twobytwo@the-ken.com.
Welcome to the year-end special edition of Two by Two.We've released 22 episodes of Two by Two since our inaugural edition in July. We've covered an incredible breadth of counterintuitive topics framed as, well, two by twos. Would Flipkart become Phonepe before Phonepe became Flipkart? Did Delhi prick Bengaluru's bubble? Is the golden era of the software engineer over? Why is health insurance broken? How will Ola and Uber avoid ‘death by a thousand cuts'? Why is Zepto behaving like a gold medallist? Can venture capitalists do no wrong? Dmart versus the challengers at the gates. AI and the impending disruption of Indian SaaS. We've had incredible fun exploring these ideas with a bunch of really sharp, experienced and opinionated guests. Finding guests who don't hesitate to speak their minds and state unpopular truths has been one of the hardest things. Far, far tougher than finding interesting topics. We owe all our guests a huge thanks for trusting us. Far too many professionals and leaders prefer to stick to rehearsed and predictable talking points in public these days.We'd started Two by Two with the ambition to operate at the intersection of curiosity and synthesis. Each week, we said we'd spot the hidden connections and unasked questions. We'd identify the cast of players and their motivations. We'd bring in incredible people to discuss these with. We'd try to answer simple yet fundamental questions like, what is going on, why is it happening, who gains and who loses, and where is all of this leading to?By always asking questions. Always connecting the dots. Always being unfiltered and uninhibited.We wanted Two by Two to be ‘your personal investigative brain'. In 2025 we hope to make Two by Two even more interesting and unpredictable. Yes, at its core it will still be a weekly podcast. But I'm excited at the possibility of doing so much more by involving our subscribers, listeners and readers in these endeavours. We want to make Two by Two ‘our collective investigative brain'. And hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan will continue to do so with a new episode every Thursday.To listen to all episodes of Two by Two, consider subscribing to The Ken's Premium plan, which in addition to the podcast, will also get you access to our long-form stories, Premium newsletters and visual stories.If you just want access to Two by Two, you can do that as well on Apple Podcasts with a paid subscription.Two by Two is also a free weekly newsletter published every Friday. You can sign up for it here. Listen to all Two by Two episodes here:1. Will Flipkart become Phonepe before Phonepe becomes Flipkart? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/will-flipkart-become-phonepe-before-phonepe-becomes-flipkart/2. Why has all the excitement and disruption gone out of startups? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/why-has-all-the-excitement-and-disruption-gone-out-of-startups/3. Is Zepto a gold medallist or a bronze medallist? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/is-zepto-a-gold-medalist-or-a-bronze-medalist/4. Delhi pricked the Bengaluru bubble - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/delhi-pricked-the-bangalore-bubble/5. Swiggy needs to reclaim its past glory - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/swiggy-needs-to-reclaim-its-past-glory/6. Is the golden era of the (software) engineer over? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/is-the-golden-era-of-the-software-engineer-over/7. Google Pay: Big. Successful. Vulnerable - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/google-pay-big-successful-vulnerable/8. Private coaching is eating away at schooling - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/private-coaching-is-eating-away-at-schooling/9. Why Stripe could not become the Stripe of India? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/why-couldnt-stripe-become-the-stripe-of-india/10. Health insurance in India is ripe for disruption - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/health-insurance-is-ripe-for-disruption/11. Netflix and its last growth market - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/netflixs-last-growth-market/12. Ather Energy was a pioneer. Can it also be a leader? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/ather-energy-was-a-pioneer-can-it-also-be-a-leader/13. Do we even need Product Managers? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/do-we-even-need-product-managers/14. How will Ola and Uber avoid ‘death by a thousand cuts'? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/how-will-ola-and-uber-avoid-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/15. The relentless rise of the government as a competitor - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/the-relentless-rise-of-the-government-as-a-competitor/16. What does the future hold for Ola Electric? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/what-does-ola-electrics-future-hold/17. Can venture capitalists do no wrong? - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/can-venture-capitalists-do-no-wrong/18. Dmart versus the challengers at the gate - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/dmart-versus-the-challengers-at-the-gate/19. Marketing is eating itself from the inside - https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/marketing-is-eating-i...
Artificial intelligence will affect all facets of modern-day business in some way or another. But it will most definitely go a few layers deeper with the type of companies whose job is to be a record of business' today – SaaS companies.SaaS as a business model is investment-heavy in the beginning. It's risky to build, it takes time to build, and it takes skill to build. But if successful, it is a cash cow. Think of the biggest SaaS companies – Salesforce, Microsoft and Adobe. They spent years building and iterating on software products. And today, all of these products they poured money into make them billions of dollars.But there's a perfect storm that has been turning the tides, and the incumbents have seen the signs and have jumped at it to secure their advantage and not lose out to upstarts.The one thing about SaaS products is that they have to be constantly sold to their customers. But with AI, the entire loop becomes a solution that makes the customer's life easier. SaaS products integrated with AI will be bought because they'll solve the use case of its customers specifically. Companies which usually resort to different pricing strategies for small additional features will have to reconsider and be aligned to deliver outcomes for their customer, not a feature list which is based on purchasing licences to gain access.And in all of this, what happens to the Indian SaaS companies as the AI wave ushers in?In episode 21 of Two by Two, hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar sat down with guests Sumanth Raghavendra, CEO and co-founder of Presentations.AI and one of the co-founders of The Ken, and Sidu Ponnappa, CEO and co-founder of Realfast and former managing director of Gojek India.This is a short ‘highlights only' version of the hour-and-a-half-long discussion.A Premium subscription to The Ken will give you access to our long-form stories, premium newsletters, podcasts, and visual stories in addition to Two by Two.If you'd just like access to Two by Two, you can do that too by getting a Premium subscription to Two by Two on Apple Podcasts.You can sign up for The Two by Two newsletter here—it's free!Tune in to the latest Two by Two podcast to listen to an engrossing discussion on how AI will shake up SaaS models across the world and what's in store for India's SaaS companies.Additional reading:The AI apocalypse is coming: Are SaaS companies ready?BarbAIrians at the Gate: The Financial Opportunity of AIThe End of the SaaS Era: Rethinking software's role in business------Listen to the Two by Two 'unlocked' episode – What does Ola Electric's future hold?Link to the 'unlocked' episode:Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | Youtube------This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Mixing and mastering for this episode was done by Rajiv CN.Write to us with what you thought of the episode at twobytwo@the-ken.com.
In this episode, Anupam Rastogi, General Partner at Emergent Ventures, shares his extensive experience investing in SaaS companies.Anupam discusses his journey from an engineer to a venture capitalist and provides insights into the challenges and mistakes SaaS founders often face when entering the US market.Key topics include the importance of spending time in the US, the balance between science and art in building SaaS products, pricing strategies, and why Indian SaaS companies need to find a distinct product-market fit for the US.Anupam also emphasizes the need for founders to integrate into local ecosystems and learn from various communities to ensure success.00:00 Introduction01:07 Anupam's Journey in the SaaS World02:11 Building Emergent Ventures03:30 Common Mistakes in Setting Up GTM for the US Market04:56 When to Move to the US as a Founder16:51 Navigating the US-India Founder Community21:44 Pricing Strategies for the US Market28:39 Determining Product-Market Fit in the US34:16 Lightning Round and ConclusionAll this and more in this episode with Anupam.
Selling SaaS to Indian Customers: Master Strategies for a Thriving Market Are you aiming to tap into the booming Indian SaaS market but facing unique challenges? In this episode of Modern Revenue, we debunk the myths about selling SaaS in India and equip you with winning strategies. Join me, Udit Goenka, as we explore: The Indian SaaS Landscape: Discover the market's size, growth potential, and why India is a crucial region for SaaS expansion.Beyond the Price Myth: Learn how to communicate value effectively, tailor your pricing models, and win over price-conscious Indian businesses.The Art of Relationship Building: Understand the importance of trust in Indian business culture, and master networking and referral strategies.Value Proposition Power: Craft a compelling pitch focused on ROI, local case studies, and addressing specific Indian pain points.Localization is Key: Adapt your SaaS offering, messaging, and support to resonate deeply with the Indian market. This episode is packed with insider knowledge, actionable tips, and data-driven insights. If you're serious about SaaS success in India, this is your essential guide. If you want to... Conquer the growing Indian SaaS marketAdapt your sales approach for maximum successBuild long-lasting customer relationships in India ...then hit that subscribe button! Subscribe to the Modern Revenue podcast and become an expert on the Indian SaaS landscape.
If you're here to find out more about our brand new early careers podcast, check out The First Two Years and how you can join the TFTY community here! You can also listen to our trailer on Spotify and Apple. Welcome to Episode 41 of First Principles.When asked, Girish Mathrubootham* – the CEO and Co-Founder of Freshworks, says that there's one thing most of his direct reports would agree about him – that he leads from the heart. Many Freshworks employees have a different way of describing Girish. He's a product manager first, and then a CEO. Product and People are thus two words to describe Girish. One of them - Product - was something he got into accidentally. But both of them are areas where he's built organisational strengths and culture very intentionally. The news headlines when Freshworks went public on NASDAQ was that Girish had created 500 crorepatis within his organization. That is, employees whose Freshworks shares made them worth over 1 crore rupees.Freshworks was the first Indian SaaS company to become a unicorn. It was also the first Indian SaaS company to be listed on the US markets. Last year it clocked revenues of nearly 600 million dollars. All before its 15th birthday. Across this episode, Girish the product manager is front and centre. It was evident in the way that he rattled off sharp and fun analogies to explain how he views Freshworks and his role at the organization as a CEO. It was almost as if Freshworks the company itself were an organically evolving product, with its CEO also its lead product manager. And to think that Girish's entry into product management came over two decades ago when his then manager told him to build a product he had pitched – and essentially become a “product manager.” That day, he went back home and googled what a product manager is. He has very sharp and distinct views on leadership and organization building. As a leader, he's opposed to measuring performance by numbers or execution alone. His metric for “winning” – as in, winning as an organization – is shaped by energy and vibes. He isn't just hiring the best talent for a role. He's giving the right role to the best talent.In this episode, you'll understand this curious mix of people and product that keeps the lights on at Freshworks. Girish talks about why a company like Freshworks – which entered and continues to play in a crowded and competitive market – succeeds. Why and how he's made peace with growing at close to 20% annually, so long as he's also aiming for around the same percentage in profits. And what the best way is to chart a path to entrepreneurship in this day and age. And, also – why he loves Chennai so much! This is episode 41 of First Principles—The Ken's weekly leadership podcast.*Girish Mathrubootham is an investor in The Ken.
In the first episode of PitchCraft, Moneycontrol's Chandra Srikanth speaks to Girish Mathrubootham, Founder and CEO of Freshworks, and Shekhar Kirani, partner at Accel, about the first pitch deck of Freshworks, a company that made history as the first Indian SaaS firm to list on NASDAQ. Girish emphasizes that a pitch deck should clearly articulate the problem the startup is trying to solve, how the solution will be executed, and why the team is well-equipped to succeed. The power of storytelling is at the heart of this episode; both Girish and Shekhar agree that telling your startup's story well helps secure investor interest, while providing information about the competition and how you will take them on builds investor confidence.
In this episode featuring Ajay Bulusu, the Founder & CEO of NextBillion.ai, we dive into the realm of SaaS international growth. We explore the essential strategies Indian SaaS companies must adopt to establish a robust global customer base. This episode is a treasure trove for startups and established firms alike, offering a roadmap to scaling beyond borders. Ajay also shares his expert insights on the most effective channels for Indian B2B SaaS companies to acquire global customers and discusses the challenges Indian SaaS companies face in their journey to global expansion. Learn how these challenges were overcome and gain an understanding of the future trends in the global market for Indian SaaS. This episode is not only a guide to global success but also a lens into the future of Indian SaaS on the world stage. Subscribe for more valuable insights, and hit the bell icon to stay updated on our latest episodes, as we bring you the forefront of SaaS innovation and global business strategies. Show us love! Know more: https://thriftytitans.comShare your thoughts: team@thriftytitans.comAre you on Insta?: https://www.instagram.com/thrifty.titans/Maybe LinkedIn?: https://linkedin.com/company/thriftytitansYouTube? Come on!: https://www.youtube.com/@thrifty.titansShare your feedback: https://forms.gle/4eSnbyMXQeWXAgc68
In 2010, after a bad customer support experience for a TV delivery, Girish Mathrubootham decided to build a better solution. He launched Freshworks as the first multichannel customer support system. Today, the product has evolved into a robust suite for IT, customer support, sales, and marketing teams. Freshworks now has three offices across eight countries with over 5,000 employees and more than 65,000 customers. In 2021, Girish took Freshworks public on Nasdaq as the first Indian SaaS company to go public in the US. Girish shares why he believes this is the Indian decade for tech, why UI and design are key for product-led growth, and why "pressure is a privilege" is a motto that resonates.
Generated by Tailor.Get your own personalized daily podcast! Sign up for freeIn this episode, we discuss Greylock Partners' fundraising success, with a $1 billion 17th fund aimed at pre-seed, seed, and Series A enterprise and consumer software startups. We also explore White Castle's use of AI-powered technology in its drive-thru lanes, as well as emerging trends in climate tech and legal tech funding. Music: Mosaic [Electro] by Hardcore Scm. Licensed under: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/News articles cited in this episode:- Apple co-founder tells Kansas crowd: The real threat from AI is misinformation https://www.startlandnews.com/2023/10/steve-wozniak-kansas/- VC funding to Pacific Northwest startups in Q3 was down nearly 50% year-over-year https://www.geekwire.com/2023/vc-funding-to-pacific-northwest-startups-in-q3-was-down-nearly-50-year-over-year/- Greylock Closes New $1B Fund To Invest In Earliest-Stage Startups https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/greylock-new-fund-investing/- AI Deepfake Ads: Tom Hanks, Gayle King Sound Warning - CNET https://www.cnet.com/tech/ai-deepfake-ads-tom-hanks-gayle-king-sound-warning/#ftag=CAD590a51e- How an AI deepfake ad of MrBeast ended up on TikTok https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/03/how-an-ai-deepfake-ad-of-mrbeast-ended-up-on-tiktok/- Wheels Of Justice Slow To Accept Legal Tech As Funding Falls https://news.crunchbase.com/policy-regulation/ai-legal-tech-funding-falls-2023/- ETSA 2023 | Indian SaaS companies can tap domestic public markets too: Nexus's Jishnu Bhattacharjee https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/startups/etsa-2023-indian-saas-companies-can-tap-domestic-public-markets-too-nexuss-jishnu-bhattacharjee/articleshow/104140581.cms- What VCs look for in Climate Tech Startups: Opportunities and Deal Breakers https://www.eu-startups.com/2023/10/what-vcs-look-for-in-climate-tech-startups-opportunities-and-deal-breakers/- Amidst market slowdown, Atomico closes $1.1B to break the Silicon Valley monopoly in Europe https://techfundingnews.com/amidst-market-slowdown-atomico-closes-1-1b-to-break-the-silicon-valley-monopoly-in-europe/- As More Tech Comes to the Drive-Thru, Will Consumers Agree to T&Cs Regarding Their Privacy? https://thespoon.tech/as-more-tech-comes-to-the-drive-thru-will-consumers-agree-to-tcs-regarding-their-privacy/- AI Coming to White Castle Drive-Thrus With Help From SoundHound, Samsung https://www.technewsworld.com/story/ai-coming-to-white-castle-drive-thrus-with-help-from-soundhound-samsung-178678.html?rss=1- Greylock secures $1B for its 17th fund amid launch of early-stage founders program https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/03/greylock-1b-venture-capital-founders-program/
In today's episode we take a quick look at Zoho's latest milestone, with the Indian SaaS leader crossing 100 million users, but first a few headlines. Headlines HeromotoCorp will invest up to Rs. 550 crore in a rights issue of Ather Energy Private Limited, the Indian two-wheeler giant told stock exchanges on Sep. 4 in a statement. Atomicwork, a cloud software provider of productivity software, has raised $11 million in seed funding led by Blume Ventures and Matrix Partners, TechCrunch reports. Richard Lobo, an executive vice president and former head of human resources at Infosys, has resigned, marking the latest in a series of top-level exits at the company, Moneycontrol reports. One thing today Zoho, India's biggest cloud software company, has surpassed 100 million, the Chennai-to-California company said in a press release. Zoho says it is the first bootstrapped SaaS company to reach this milestone. Last year the company hit $1 billion in revenues, and Zoho is one of a handful of SaaS companies in India that are profitable. Started more than 25 years ago, the company's growth over the last 15 years, with the rise of the cloud computing model, has taken it from 1 million users in 2008 to 100 million today. The latest 50 million users were added within the past five years. And the company sells more than 55 products to over 700,000 businesses in some 150 countries, according to its press release. “We are not done yet,” co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu said in the release. The company has an innovation pipeline covering the next 10 years and it is investing in deep technologies to serve billions of users around the world, he said. Zoho defines midmarket customers as companies with 250 employees each and those with a thousand or more workers as classic enterprise, or the upmarket segment. India shows a significant presence of enterprise customers adopting Zoho, CMO Praval Singh had said in an interview with Forbes India in June this year. In the SaaS business, larger customers mean more users and increased complexity, resulting in higher revenue per customer. The upmarket segment contributes over half of Zoho's business in India, and a third of its entire business. As its products matured, larger businesses adopted its solutions. This led Zoho to establish dedicated teams with expertise in serving large companies. “We also developed an interoperable ecosystem, enabling easy integration with third-party applications through APIs, connectors, and partnerships,” Praval said in that interview. To cater to larger enterprises, the company launched the Zoho Marketplace, which has more than 1,800 extensions and garners 30,000 monthly installations. In 2018, Zoho introduced an enterprise business solutions team as trusted partners, offering assistance in digital transformation projects, from consulting to implementation and training. Zoho has focused on helping large enterprises streamline and optimise their technology stacks, addressing challenges such as integration, data silos, scalability, and flexibility. By helping customers overcome these obstacles, Zoho has played a meaningful role in supporting their growth and progress over the years, Praval says. India is one of the fastest-growing markets for Zoho, where the company has witnessed three year compounded annual growth of 65 percent in its upmarket segment. Customers in India include IIFL, Bigbasket and Tata Play Fiber. Zoho's upmarket growth in India is led by sectors such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, retail, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), pharmaceuticals, and IT. The company has collaborated with government departments and public sector units (PSUs) to support their digitalisation efforts and contribute to the modernisation of the public sector.
Today, five takeaways on the future of India's SaaS sector from the perspective of an early-stage VC investor, but first, a few headlines. Headlines India's Aditya-L1 satellite, our first space-based solar observatory, was launched successfully on Sep. 2 at 11:50 a.m. local time, Isro said in an update. Microsoft is ending WordPad, the basic word processor that's been included with Windows since 1995, Thurrot reported over the weekend, citing a support page from the Windows maker. Infosys has completed the acquisition of Denmark's Danske Bank's 1,400-person IT centre in India, the Bengaluru IT services company said in a press release on Sep. 1. One thing today There are optimistic projections about how India's SaaS companies will become a $50 billion sector by 2030 and so on. But what are some of the obstacles they will have to overcome. Recently, I had a chance to sit down with Arun Raghavan, founding partner at Arali Ventures in Bengaluru, and this was one of the topics we discussed for a bit. Here are some quick takeaways from Arun's experience, which includes successfully backing multiple SaaS startups very early on in their journey and even some good exits. 1. The go-to-market playbook is heftier than five years ago. So how does one create a sales engine that can have people sit in India and develop relationships with enterprise customers in the US and Europe. You can only do that to a limited extent if you're only trying from India. And if you really want to go after large customers, you need feet on street. More companies doing this much better today, but there's ways to go. 2. How do you scale a company sitting in India to become a $100 million dollar business, especially if you're selling into the US? This is work in progress. Typically, a company that starts in the US, which gets good talent, is off to the races, but the pool of people who have the experience of playing the cross-border game is still limited. The numbers are big in tech services, but not yet in the products startup ecosystem. 3. You may disagree, but the real cutting-edge stuff is still mostly coming from Silicon Valley or Israel and such hubs. That proportion is still 80-90 percent, Arun says. Of course, there are very interesting companies coming out of India, but it's not widespread yet. Can a startup find a critical mass of generative AI experts quickly in India, for example? Not really, says Arun. And the more deeper tech players from India, more often than not, while they may have centres in India, they will also tap talent in Eastern Europe, for example, or Israel or the US or all of the above. 4. We need to go way deeper than the application layer. Traditionally, we've been great at application software. We've got a $200 billion tech services industry to show for it. But anything that's at a more infrastructure level, or tooling level is something that we don't have a lot of experience in, Arun says. He expects these are areas where we will develop some knowhow over the next four or five years. Why is this important? Well, the infra players are relevant to customers around the world. For example, can we think of a Snowflake emerging from India in the next ten years, asks Arun? Or a Databricks? 5. The money is there now. To end on a more optimistic note, funding isn't a challenge anymore, Arun says, the current slowdown notwithstanding. Over the last five years, large investors from the US have taken note of the potential for software product companies to come out of India and they have been investing in this ecosystem. This will only increase.
The Indian SaaS ecosystem has demonstrated greater resilience than its global counterparts. Revenues crossed $7 billion, formation of new SaaS companies expanded three-fold, and India now corners 2% of the global SaaS market, as per a report by SaasBoomi and McKinsey. On this episode of Matrix Moments, Arvind Parthiban, CEO & Co-Founder at SuperOps.ai; Rishi Kulkarni, Managing Director at LegalZoom; Vijay Rayapati, Co-founder and CEO of AtomicWork, and Pranay Desai, delve into the journeys of second-time SaaS founders. Explore the driving forces that led to embarking on a fresh journey, coupled with their approach across pivotal domains including market strategies, co-founder synergies, product innovation, customer exploration and much more.
feedback @ ryan@soulsearching.in EPISODE LINKS: March Capital Profile Page : https://marchcp.com/people/ravi-rajamony/ Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravi-rajamony-1b5013a/ Twitter : https://twitter.com/Ravirajamony PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://anchor.fm/ryandsouza Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3NQhg6S Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3qJ3tWJ Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3P66j2B Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3am7rQc Gaana: https://bit.ly/3ANS4v1 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/609210d4/podcast/rss --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ryandsouza/message
Vivek Khandelwal, Co-Founder of iZooto, discusses how they grew their audience marketing platform past $5MN+ in ARR while remaining completely bootstrapped. In this interview, we cover their product, journey from 0 to 1, growth over the past 12 months, sales cycle, and long-term vision. We also talk about how Upekkha, a leading SaaS accelerator, helped them grow manifold over the years.The interview covers the following topics:How iZooto helps publishers of all sizes with audience engagement and retentionHow they acquired over 1000 paying customers with approximately 16000 users on the platformHow they crossed the $5MN ARR mark and are on track to hit $10MN soonHow they have been growing in double digits almost every yearHow they hustled and used their connections to get their first set of customersHow they acquire approximately 60% of leads through outbound and the rest through inbound channels, with content and SEO playing a huge partHow their sales cycle looks across various sets of customersHow they joined Upekkha (a leading Indian SaaS accelerator) at around $250K ARR and how they benefitted from Upekkha's network, tools, and community over the yearsWhy Vivek recommends fellow SaaS founders join Upekkha and how they can benefit from the brilliant founder community they have builtTheir vision and team
In this episode of the BTS podcast, our hosts Arvind and Varun introduce a new format of discussion to the show and decide to pick each other's brains to go deeper into topics that are pertinent to founders and marketeers. They explore the various aspects of designing the perfect pricing plan for your business keeping in mind various aspects such as the product, the perceived value, the market segment, the industry and the buyer persona. Listen on as they explore pricing strategies of various companies who've done it right from the get-go and others who've got it right through trial and error, in effect showcasing how setting a pricing plan for your SaaS product may not always be the simplest or most straightforward exercise.Key Takeaways/Timestamps2:37 - MSP - Managed Service Provider3:10 - Silent price hikes in the industry5:33 - 4 levers of business7:32 - Effective communication over Grandfathering10:02 - Pricing game on point11:09 - HubSpot-on pricing14:03 - Unpredictable pricing design16:17 - Don't reinvent the pricing wheel that works20:28 - Questions to ask before designing the pricing model21:41 - Who's doing the heavy lifting?22:32 - Top 3 challenges faced by Indian Saas companies24:54 - Perceived value of your product28:55 - Are you selling based on the features of your product?32:52 - Playing to the persona36:45 - Common pricing mistakes in the Indian ecosystemKey Mentions3:30 - Ninjaone7:37 - Netflix11:44 - Intercom12:04 - Hubspot12:11 - Salesforce12:13 - Pipedrive17:10 - Girish Mathrubootham 38:02 - Pipecandy38:19 - Wingman
In this episode, Bala Srinivasa, managing director at Arkam Ventures, talks about experiences from the firm's first set of 14 investments so far from their $106 million inaugural fund. Over the last four years, Srinivasa, and his fellow founding partner Rahul Chandra, have backed entrepreneurs who have successfully applied technology to create business innovation in areas including financial services, agriculture, modern staffing and augmented reality. A second thesis at Arkam is software-as-a-service and Bala also talks about why Indian SaaS companies mostly prefer the US as a market
The US Justice Department yesterday accused Google of abusing its dominance in digital advertising, and said the internet giant should be forced to sell its ad manager suite, Reuters reports. Venture capital funding of startups fell more than 38 percent in 2022 versus 2021, GlobalData finds. Indian software-as-a-service companies, however, were a relative bright spot, according to a separate report, by Bain & Company, a consultancy, which estimates the sector is maturing and will continue to grow. And Pune startup Ecozen has raised $25 million in equity funding and loans. Notes: The US Justice Department yesterday accused Google of abusing its dominance in digital advertising, and said the internet giant should be forced to sell its ad manager suite, Reuters reports. That business generated about 12 percent of Google's revenues in 2021 but also plays a vital role in the search engine and cloud company's overall sales, according to Reuters. "Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies," the antitrust complaint said. Google's advertising business is responsible for about 80 percent of its revenue. In the world of startups, as concerns about global economic slowdown took hold, venture capital investments in India fell 38.2 percent in 2022 versus 2021, according to GlobalData. An analysis of GlobalData's financial deals database reveals that a total of 1,726 VC funding deals worth $20.9 billion were announced in India in 2022. The number of deals in 2021 was about the same, at 1,715, but the amount of funding was much higher, at $33.8 billion. Meanwhile, India's Software as a Service (SaaS) ventures are a relatively bright spot, according to Bain & Company, a multinational consultancy. Indian SaaS companies are poised to command 8 percent of the global SaaS market, generating $35 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by 2027, growing at 20–25 percent per annum, Bain concludes in a new report that was released yesterday. “We are now seeing the emergence of a set of Indian SaaS companies who have a right to win not just in India, but globally, Arpan Sheth, a partner at Bain, and co-author of the report. The outlook for Indian SaaS investment remains broadly positive over the next 12 months, with ~90 percent of Indian SaaS investors expecting to increase or maintain their capital allocation to SaaS. Ecozen, a cold-chain tech startup, has raised $25 million in equity and debt funding, the Pune company said in a press release. The Series C equity portion was led by Nuveen and Dare Ventures, with participation from the Export-Import Bank of India, and existing investors Caspian and Hivos-Triodos Fonds. Omnivore and IFA, early investors in Ecozen, took partial exits in this round. Ecozen was founded by three IIT Kharagpur alumni, Devendra Gupta, Prateek Singhal and Vivek Pandey. They sell solutions for motor controls, IoT, and energy storage focused on cold chains and irrigation for the agri sector.
Pranay is a SaaS investor at Matrix Partners India. Before moving to investing, Pranay played several key roles at Freshworks including the Director of Growth Marketing at Freshworks, and managed to ramp up the marketing machinery. He has also worked with the CEO's office at Freshworks where he was responsible for ramping the revenues from 5 Million to 100 Million. He comes with tons of knowledge on how marketing used to work in the past, how it works today, and how SaaS businesses should think about marketing for the future. Pranay recommends SaaS businesses find new channels where their target audience hangs out as early as possible. There is no single marketing strategy or channel that will always work. It is necessary for businesses to find their “distribution edge”. The BTS Podcast Episode 10 has Pranay sharing several nuggets of marketing wisdom.Tune in to watch the full podcast.Key takeaways:1:24 - Building a SaaS company: Then and Now3:46 - The challenges that businesses face today4:35 - Optimizing costs for lead-gen7:56 - Worthy SaaS examples9:15 - Lessons learnt from experiments13:45 - Winning the confidence of enterprise customers19:19 - The Experience Roadshow26:34 - How to measure the RoI of non-standard events28:03 - Indicators of Product Market Fit and Business Market Fit33:05 - Founders should become students of sales34:35 - Indian SaaS advantage39:41 - Rapid fireResources mentioned2:34 - How Wiz reached $100M ARR in 18 months? Techcrunch8:02 - Rocketlane's Community Building | The CMO Journal29:55 - Girish Mathrubootam's first blog announcing Freshdesk as a startup in October 2010 while Freshdesk was publicly launched in June 20114 interesting campaigns discussed throughout the podcastThe van that traveled to 11 destinations | Freshworks Experience Roadshow | 2019Going on air to create virality - #Failsforce campaignReports instill confidence in buyers - Freshdesk | Forrester TEI ReportRocketlane's rap song announcing fundraisingKey mentions8:00 - Srikrishnan Ganesan of RocketLane 2. 33:00 - Rishi Kulkarni and Sameer Goel of Revv
Dhruvil Sanghvi is a tech-savvy engineer who began his career as a consultant before taking up the entrepreneurial journey in 2015. Today, he also invests in startups. Coming from a multi-generational business family, Dhruvil believes that launching and running a successful business is the best way to create a big impact on society and economy. His journey of kickstarting LogiNext with his own savings, raising 10 Million dollars in funding within a short span of 9 months after the seed round definitely has lessons for every SaaS founder. LogiNext is a global technology and automation company with a focus on the transportation, home deliveries, omni-channel fulfillment, and B2B distribution market. Founded in 2015, LogiNext can be rightly called one of the early entrants into the Indian SaaS space. LogiNext entered the market during a period when Amazon and several other startups were setting up the rapidly growing startup scene. This episode will unravel the growth journey of LogiNext and how it went on to global brands like McDonald's, Mahindra, PayTM, Myntra, Decathlon & Domino's among many others as its clients. As a bonus, Dhruvil will also share the lessons he learned from the mistakes he made as a founder and how LogiNext managed to bounce back from them. The lessons helped them scale 150 clients across SEA, the Middle East, India, the US, Europe, and Latin America. Key takeaways1:35 - What is LogiNext2:45 - Dhruvil's Background9:30 - How consulting experience helped in SaaS? 13:38 - Advantages of coming from a business family21:27 - Raising funds as a new entrepreneur23:20 - How did he spend the first $100k on the company?28:26 - What did it take to raise the first $500k?30:05 - Going from $500k to $10 Million in funding within 9 months42:32 - GTM Plan and Ideal ICPs46:28 - Acquisition Model47:06 - Marketing and Sales Spend49:07 - Becoming an investor52:29 - SaaS Founders that Dhruvil looks up to53:48 - 3 exciting startup investments Dhruvil has made54:09 - Thoughts on work-life balance55:23 - Advice for upcoming SaaS Entrepreneurs Key mentions Microsoft VentureReliance GenNextIndian Angel NetworkVijay Shekhar Sharma : Twitter | LinkedInSanjay Mehta : Twitter | LinkedInHappy Listening!
Sreedhar is a serial entrepreneur and has founded 3 startups. He is currently the Co-founder of GTM Buddy, a SaaS startup that enables sales people do better. In this episode he spoke about the core skills that helped him startup thrice, how to sell to large enterprises, creating a new category and more in his conversation with Roshan Cariappa. Topics:00:00 Introduction01:17 Core Skill sets that helped Sreedhar startup 3 times06:57 Sreedhar's learnings from his past ventures09:53 Advice on Selling SaaS to large enterprises14:13 Importance of getting the right customers17:43 Competing against the incumbents23:24 Advice to founders pioneering a new category26:01 The unique challenges in sales enablement29:29 What is GTM Buiddy and it's use cases?37:37 Advice for founders in the $0-1 journey38:29 Getting people to prioritise buying decisions40:51 Sreedhar's thoughts on the Indian SaaS ecosystem43:37 Books and Podcast recommendations ------------------------------------- Connect with Sreedhar :Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sreedharpeddineni/Twitter: https://twitter.com/SPeddineni100 ------------------------------------- Connect with Us: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/startup-operatorTwitter: https://twitter.com/OperatorStartup ------------------------------------- If you liked this episode, let us know by hitting the like button and share with your friends and family. Please also remember to subscribe to our channel and switch on the notifications to never miss an episode!
In Sales the stakes are high. And for company's growth it is important to get it right.Thanks to multiple options of Sales engagement softwares which streamlines the sales process through integrations which enables companies to combine their sales and marketing efforts to create personalized and automated sales journeys.In today's episode of 100x Entrepreneur, we have with us Yamini Bhat, Co-founder & CEO, Vymo; i.e An intelligent sales engagement platform for financial institutions.Started in 2013, Vymo is used by 300,000+ Sales Reps across 65+ Enterprises such as HDFC Bank, SBI Life Insurance, and Sun Life Financial among others.While most SaaS startups go global from Day 1, Vymo is one of the few Indian SaaS companies which scaled to more than $10M ARR with India Enterprises as clients.During the episode, catch Yamini sharing why did they chose to focus on BFSI, how did they brought awareness for both their team and customers about their product and much more. Notes - 01:33 - Intro03:05 - Career background in Sales Transformation at Mckinsey which led her to Vymo06:48 - Family background and getting into BITS Pilani & IIM Bangalore?14:58 - Quitting Mckinsey and identifying the problem statement to startup17:29 - Till Series-A being focused on a horizontal solution20:53 - Zoho Sponsored – Prashant Ganti on Where do founders struggle with Payroll and how can they fix it?23:04 - Milestones during Vymo's journey26:26 - Key challenges with team and customers early-on28:56 - Convincing the first few BFSI customers for an average contract value of $350K31:54 - Building a SaaS behemoth from India and then expanding globally36:16 - Her 0 to $10 Million ARR playbook for SaaS-entrepreneurs in IndiaAlso, try out a 30-day free trial of Zoho Payroll, and simplify your Payroll journey as an entrepreneur!https://zoho.to/zoho-payroll
In the first quarter of 2022, 93 SaaS companies built out of India raised $2 billion in funding. As the next generation of Indian SaaS companies scale, we want to demystify the ‘zero-to-one' process of building sustainable SaaS businesses.Our new live podcast series “SaaS from Scratch” focuses on bringing deep insights to help young SaaS founders learn the tools of the trade from successful leaders who have helped scale SaaS companies. Kickstarting the series with Sourabh Gupta, Co-founder & CEO of Skit.ai, to discuss insights on Product-Market Fit. The No. 1 reason for startup failures is that there was no significant market need for their product or service. In the context of SaaS, we cover why product-market-fit is so important, how to achieve it, and how to shape business decisions pre-PMF & post-PMF. If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us at podcast@kalaari.com. We would love to hear from you.For more podcasts, visit our website- https://www.kalaari.com/resources
This week in Indian Startup News, Unacademy opens first offline learning center in Kota to take on Allen and other players, Paytm Shows Strong Growth in Lending Business, Shiprocket acquires Pickrr, Mensa Brands buys Pebble, Sequoia Closes Largest India & SEA Fund At $2.85 Bn. In Founder Spotlight, we have the founders of Dukaan, Subhash Choudhary and Suumit Shah, who have announced plans to take Dukaan global. In Funding news we have, upGrad, WOW Skin, infra.market and 18 other Indian startups raise more than $1 Million. Unacademy Open first Offline Center: India's Edtech sector is seeing a major shift as billion-dollar startups are now taking on Offline coaching centers like Allen in offline space. After the impact of Covid going down and schools reopening, ed-tech startups have seen their growth slow down as we saw in the case of Byju's and Whitehat Jr and other startups like Unacademy, Vedantu and Lido Learning laying off hundreds of employees. This move by Unacademy has brought a big pushback from Allen as their founder Brajesh Maheshwari released a video warning it's teachers not to leave it. In response, Unacademy has asked for police protection for it's teachers. Founder Spotlight - Subhash Choudhary and Suumit Shah: Subhash and Suumit started Dukaan in 2020 to help Indian small businesses go online. After having a great run in local market, they have now decided to go global and take on Shopify. They have identified the issues that brands face with Shopify and they want to solve them. The major issue that they feel brands are facing with Shopify, is speed and performance and this is causing merchants to lose out on sales if customers have to wait even a few additional seconds for sites to load. Now this move by Dukaan would further solidify Indian SaaS companies reputation worldwide and would inspire more entrepreneurs to make products for the world. Funding this week: This week saw at least 21 Indian startups raising more than $637.6 Million. Edtech startups - upGrad raised $225 Million D2C startups - Skincare Brand WOW Skin raised $48 Million Social-tech startups - Mohalla Tech - parent company of Sharechat raised $77 Mn Construction sector - infra.market raised $50 Million Paytm Shows Strong Growth in Lending Business: After a period of sad state of affairs for Paytm ever since it's IPO in November last year, there is finally some good news for Paytm in it's lending business. For the two month period ending May 2022, Paytm has seen growth of over 471% YOY (year on year) as compared to the same period last year. Along with this rise in lending business, total number of users transacting on Paytm have also increased by almost 50%, to 74 Million compared to 50 Million during same time period last year. Shiprocket acquires Pickrr, Mensa Brands buys Pebble: Logistics startup Shiprocket has acquired it's rival Pickrr in a $200 Million deal. Started in 2017, Shiprocket has been one of the market leaders in logistics space and now they are looking at an inorganic channel of growth as they are on a massive acquisition spree. Since the start of this year, they have acquired majority stakes in Glaucus Logistics, market automation startup Wigzo, B2B logistics platform Rocketbox and SaaS-based Logibricks and Pickrr is their 5th acquisition this year. Mensa Brand acquiring Noida-based wearable brand Pebble is next and this acquisition will allow Mensa Brand foray into India's smart wearable segment. Pebble was started in 2013, by father and daughter duo – Ajay Agarwal and Komal Agarwal and it offered audio products, fitness wearables, chargers and cables. Now Pebble was a very significant player in the smart wearable segment, with more than 10 Million customers in 9 countries.
In this Episode, I (@Jivraj Singh Sachar) speak with Krish Subramanian, Co-Founder & CEO of Chargebee. Chargebee is a subscription billing and revenue management platform, valued at 3.5 Billion Dollars as of its latest funding round. It is leading the charge of Indian SaaS and building a global giant in the market from India. Started in 2011, Chargebee has come a long way, personifying perseverance and ambition in the best possible manner. I sit with Krish and decode this journey of building a global institution from India. Through an hour long immersive conversation, we discuss the nuances of what it means to have a product mindset, how to crack US GTM, how to hire effectively & build an impactful culture and eventually understand the softer aspects of being a founder. Chargebee is India's leading new age SaaS company and this episode uncovers much of how that has been made possible, and that makes this episode incredibly special. (Time Stamps Coming Soon) About our sponsor: Stride Ventures, which is one of India's leading Venture Debt Funds, becoming synonymous with innovative startup financing in India. Stride provides comprehensive solutions, going beyond venture debt, to cater to distinctive challenges faced by high-growth and inherently strong businesses, backed by leading institutions. The fund has a portfolio of over 60+ diversified companies, having deployed more than Rupees 1500 Crore to date. In just over two years, Stride Ventures has emerged as the preferred venture debt lender in the Indian Ecosystem. To know more about this phenomenal fund, visit - https://strideventures.in/ Hope you liked the 104th Episode on the Indian Silicon Valley Podcast - Building a Global SaaS Giant from India! That was it from this Episode, thanks again for tuning in! :) If you liked the episode, do share with your friends or drop us a quick review! Also, do follow us on social media to stay updated with all new episodes: Twitter: https://twitter.com/isv_podcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/indian-silicon-valley-podcast/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/indiansiliconvalleypodcast/ Gallery of all Episodes: https://airtable.com/shrTOFf1z5UT0q9p8 You can also subscribe to the YouTube Channel of the Podcast : https://www.youtube.com/c/IndianSiliconValley/ "If you never try, you never know" Stay Tuned, Keep Building.
Sheryl Sandberg said in a post yesterday that she is stepping down from her role as Chief Operating Officer at Meta, formerly known as Facebook, after 14 years at the company. Javier Olivan, the company's chief growth officer, will take over as COO. Sandberg will remain on Meta's board of directors. And some startups continue to find funding amid the current slowdown. Notes: Sheryl Sandberg said in a post yesterday that she is stepping down from her role as Chief Operating Officer at Meta, formerly known as Facebook, 14 years after she joined the company as a startup that she helped turn into one of the biggest tech companies in the world, which at one point was valued at over $1 trillion. Javier Olivan, the company's chief growth officer, will take over as COO around September. Sandberg will continue to serve on Meta's board of directors, according to her post. Coralogix, which offers a streaming analytics solution for data observability, has raised a $142 million Series D funding round, bringing the Israeli startup's total funding to $238 million, the company said in a press release. Coralogix will use the money to expand its operations, including in India and APAC. Additionally, the funds will also be used to accelerate the build-out and go-to-market of Snowbit, its recently announced cybersecurity venture being built out of India and Israel. MoEngage, a customer engagement platform provider, has raised $77 million in Series E funding led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and B Capital, with participation from the company's existing investors. This is Goldman Sachs Asset Management's first investment in an Indian SaaS company, MoEngage said in a press release. This is the third round of funding raised by the company in the last 12 months, with $32.5 million in July and $30 million in December 2021. The company will use the money to expand its operations overseas and for acquisitions. Slice, a credit card and payments tech startup has raised $50 million as part of its larger series C round led by Tiger Global, along with participation from its existing investors, Moore Strategic Ventures and Insight Partners, and a new investor, GMO VenturePartners. Slice will use the money to expand its new UPI product. The company expects its main credit business to become profitable in the coming months. BetterPlace, a tech platform for frontline workforce management, has acquired OkayGo, an on-demand blue-collar gig workforce management platform for enterprises, for an undisclosed amount. This acquisition aims to reduce the cost of hiring blue-collared workers for enterprises by 15-20 percent by providing them with a pool of pre-skilled and pre-verified workers ready to be deployed for short-term tasks. Udayy, an edtech startup has shut its business as demand for its online classes fell following schools opening up in India, Economic Times reports. The Gurugram company, founded in 2019, was offering its products to children from kindergarten to class eight. The company told Economic Times that all its 120 or so employees had been offered severance packages and most had been placed elsewhere. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds
India's tech sector is going through exciting times. There are around 1,500 companies in the SaaS sector, clocking over $2 billion in annual revenues. The SaaS industry has done exceedingly well owing to the world's increasing reliance on technology to deal with everyday tasks. "If Indian SaaS entrepreneurs choose to go far, not just fast, they will likely eclipse the IT services industry and much more," says Harichandan Arakali as he unpacks the issue that looks at the Indian SaaS ecosystem after the emergence of Zoho Corporation.
This week in Indian Startup News, Crypto Industry worried amid uncertainty in rules, Indian SaaS industry to reach $100 bn in revenues by 2026, Zepto launches 10-minute food delivery service 'Cafe', Govt To Bring EV Battery Quality Norms. In funding news, CoinDCX Bags $135 Mn, Rario raises $120 mn, Loop Health Raises $25 Million, Urbanpiper raised $24 Million. Crypto Industry worried amid uncertainty in rules: New Indian taxation laws regarding trade in cryptocurrency along with banks reluctance in buy and sell of crypto has resulted in trading volumes across various Crypto Exchanges down as much as 60%. Many founders are worried over uncertainty regarding rules subjecting to Cryptocurrency and are looking for option outside india to continue their businesses. Indian SaaS industry to reach $100 bn in revenues by 2026: According to a report by VC fund Chiratae Ventures and Zinnov, Indian Saas Industry is set to cross $100 Bn in revenue by the year 2026. The report said, that if current growth sustains, India could surpass China to become second largest Saas Market by 2026. Zepto launches 10-minute food delivery service 'Cafe': After disrupting quick grocery delivery space, Zepto has decided to make its first move into delivering food items through its new service 'Cafe' which is currently available in few parts of Mumbai. Through this service, Zepto is delivering products like tea, croissants, samosa and coffee in 10 Minutes. Company has tied up with restaurants such as Blue Tokai Coffee, Chaayos, Gurukripa snacks and Sassy Teaspoon. Govt To Bring EV Battery Quality Norms: After witnessing a series of events of fire involving electric scooters, Indian Govt has now decided to come up with a Battery policy, which will ensure key characteristics like performance testing and manufacturing standards of these batteries, along with their heat resistance capacity. CoinDCX Bags $135 Mn: Crypto Trading Exchange CoinDCX, has raised $135 Mn in a round led by Pantera Capital and Steadview Capital – raising their valuation to $2.15 billion. Company will use the funds to increase its headcount to over 1,000 by the end of next year from 400 now and hire across functions like engineering, product and compliance. Rario raises $120 mn: Cricket NFT platform Rario has raised $120 mn in a round led by Dream Capital. The investment will provide Rario access to 140 million users of Dream Sports. Loop Health Raises $25 Million: Health insurance distribution startup Loop Health has raised $25 Million in a round led by Elevation Capital and General Catalyst, which values them at $120-150 million. Company will use funds for expansion and raising their customer base from 80,000 currently to five million members in next five years. Urbanpiper raised $24 Million: SaaS/restaurant management platform Urbanpiper has raised $24 Million in a round led by Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Swiggy, Zomato. Company will use funds to bolster the platform's capabilities by scaling its product and engineering teams and expand its offering to over 200,000 restaurant locations across the globe.
Accenture has made a strategic investment, through Accenture Ventures, in Strivr, a provider of virtual reality-based, immersive learning and training solutions for enterprises, according to a press release. Santa Clara based Strivr has trained more than one million workers at some of the world's largest companies using its proven, proprietary immersive learning platform. Strivr's VR training platform helps enterprises increase the efficiency and efficacy of their employee skilling and up-skilling initiatives, while also delivering data-driven insights to improve their broader enterprise talent development efforts. Global industrial equipment and facilities distributor RS Components and Tata Consultancy Services yesterday announced RS Industria, an industrial internet of things solution, Manufacturer magazine reports. RS Industria connects real-time factory floor data with powerful analytical capabilities that continuously support RS Components' manufacturing customers in their maintenance and repair activities. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) platform, hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) means the industrial supplier can better support those on the factory floor. A Pune-based labour union has raised a complaint against Infosys with the central labour ministry and sought the removal of a non-compete agreement clause in offer letters given by the the company, Economic Times reports. Infosys's employee agreement states that an employee shall not accept for six months an employment offer from “named competitors” such as TCS, Wipro and HCL among others if the new job involves working with a customer with whom the employee has previously worked in the preceding 12 months during their stint at Infosys, the union, Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate, said in its complaint, according to ET. Brave, the company behind the eponymous fast-growing browser, is rolling out a new feature called De-AMP, which allows Brave users to bypass Google-hosted accelerated mobile pages, and instead visit the content's publisher directly. AMP harms users' privacy, security and internet experience, and just as bad, AMP helps Google further monopolise and control the direction of the Web, Brave said in a blogpost. Indian Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) startups are expected to grow 55-70 percent to clock overall revenue of $116 billion by 2026, venture capital firm Chiratae and management consultancy Zinnov said in a report, according to Economic Times. The report, titled ‘India SaaS: Punching through the global pecking order,' notes that overall funding for Indian SaaS startups is expected to touch $6.5 billion this year, compared with $4 billion in 2021. The report also says that the average size of investments in Indian SaaS companies grew to $56 million in 2021 from roughly $25 million in 2020, according to ET. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds
In this video, Caleb catches up with Caya from Slidebean to discuss startups. They talk about how India's startup ecosystem is different from the United States. Visiting India's Silicon Valley – Bengaluru: Bengaluru is the place to be to truly understand the depth of India's startup ecosystem. You can regions inside of Bengaluru which is dedicated to startups – walk down miles and you can find hundreds of startups talking about disruption. India's SaaS revolution: Slidebean has been a customer of a lot of Indian SaaS startups including Zoho, Freshworks and Chargebee and a lot more. What's surprising is that even though they have been a customer of a lot of Indian SaaS startups, they didn't even know that these companies were from India. India's booming EV space: Even though Tesla is yet to make its mark in India, Indian EV startups have been taking over the country in the last few years. From Tata's Nexon to Ather's scooters – electric vehicles are driving the revolution in India. All of this probably might not have been possible if Tesla might have entered India early. Differences between India and United States' Fintech ecosystem: India's fintech ecosystem is quite unique with UPI playing a significant role across the ecosystem. Transactions are a lot smoother and more seamless due to UPI, but the entire thing is dependent of India's own ecosystem and isn't compatible with United States' fintech ecosystem. Understanding salary differences: India is the place for global companies to hire a quality workforce at cheaper costs. This is only possible due to the huge salary and living expense differences between India and the US. India's closely-knit startup culture: The concentration of startups in a single place in cities like Bengaluru is mindboggling. You can go out for a coffee and you might bump up with some of India's leading startup entrepreneurs. The ‘Jugaad' mentality: With a lot of the new-age startup founders coming from small towns and cities where they had a lack of resources - a lot of Indian startups have this 'Jugaad' mentality - which keeps them frugal while building some world-leading products. Different countries, different problems: While startups in the US are more focused on streamlining and making things more efficient, startups in India have the opportunity to disrupt industries completely. India's savings culture: India is more of a savings focused economy where people are used to buying products only from their savings and mostly stay away from taking any loans. This is why credit card penetration in the country is extremely low. On the other hand, people in the US are a lot more comfortable with buying things they can't afford. This is why credit card penetration is a lot higher in the US. More cultural and lifestyle differences: Caya was blown away by the fact that there is a market for super expensive products in India while at the same time India's average salary is on the lower end of the spectrum. He believes that it's the cultural differences like focus on savings and salary differences that make up for these extreme lifestyle differences. India's wealth disparity: Also, the fact that there is a growing opportunity in India's tech space for engineers who are getting paid much higher than average salary is creating a huge wealth disparity among Indians. Startups are creating disproportionate wealth and enabling the Indian markets.
Naren Gupta, a venture capitalist who co-founded Nexus Venture Partners to help cement Indian SaaS startups' position to the world, died on Saturday. He was 73.
Naren Gupta, a venture capitalist who co-founded Nexus Venture Partners to help cement Indian SaaS startups' position to the world, died on Saturday. He was 73.
Read more > Listen to the podcast (duration: 26:25) > Over the last decade, the rise of software-as-a-service (or SaaS) has dramatically transformed the software industry and the myriad enterprises it serves. As the pace of digital transformation and growth of cloud computing has accelerated, SaaS has rapidly become the software-delivery model of choice and preferred alternative to legacy, on-premise products. This paradigm shift to an on-demand, subscription-based model opens up a number of opportunities for new entrants and start-ups to make their mark in the sector, and India is one market particularly well positioned to do so. Earlier this year, SaaSBOOMi, a community of founders of Indian SaaS companies, released a report, Shaping India's SaaS Landscape, that sought to quantify the country's opportunities in SaaS and identify specific measures for how the industry could reach its full potential. Today, two guests who were involved with the report join us to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the burgeoning SaaS sector in India. Manav Garg is the founder of SaaSBOOMi and the Founder and CEO of Eka Software Solutions, a cloud-based enterprise solutions provider. Sid Tandon is a partner in McKinsey's Silicon Valley office, where he serves executives and boards of technology, media and telecom (TMT) companies on strategic and value creation efforts.See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Over the last decade, the rise of software-as-a-service (or SaaS) has dramatically transformed the software industry and the myriad enterprises it serves. As the pace of digital transformation and growth of cloud computing has accelerated, SaaS has rapidly become the software-delivery model of choice and preferred alternative to legacy, on-premise products. This paradigm shift to an on-demand, subscription-based model opens up a number of opportunities for new entrants and start-ups to make their mark in the sector, and India is one market particularly well positioned to do so. Earlier this year, SaaSBOOMi, a community of founders of Indian SaaS companies, released a report, Shaping India's SaaS Landscape, that sought to quantify the country's opportunities in SaaS and identify specific measures for how the industry could reach its full potential. Today, two guests who were involved with the report join us to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the burgeoning SaaS sector in India. Manav Garg is the founder of SaaSBOOMi and the Founder and CEO of Eka Software Solutions, a cloud-based enterprise solutions provider. Sid Tandon is a partner in McKinsey's Silicon Valley office, where he serves executives and boards of technology, media and telecom (TMT) companies on strategic and value creation efforts. Read more > Listen to the podcast (duration: 26:25) >
A notion amongst most Indian SaaS entrepreneurs is to move to the US to expand or start from the US from Day 1 itself.However, in today's episode, we've brought Anand Jain, Co-founder of CleverTap, to debunk this myth and shed more light on what an early-stage SaaS founder's roadmap should be in terms of either staying in India or moving to any global market.CleverTap is a leading customer engagement and retention platform, trusted by over 10,000 apps, including Gojek, AirAsia, Sony, Vodafone, Carousell, and Cleartrip.During the episode, Anand talks about how a company needs to adopt new market plans to continue growing one milestone after another, his learnings early-stage SaaS entrepreneurs can consider in their journey, and much more.Notes - 00:55 - Founding CleverTap06:57 - $45 Mn ARR and customer growth Y-o-Y10:43 - “What got you to 45 will not get you 100.”16:55 - Is moving to the US to expand as a SaaS company necessary?24:03 - 3 Key points in his $1 Mn to $10 Mn ARR Playbook27:10 - Mistakes in his journey building CleverTap40:10 - Game Plan to market your product in newer markets and different ARR levels
In today's episode, we talk with Sanjay Nath, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Blume Ventures, one of India's leading early-stage venture funds. Sanjay also represents Blume on the boards of Arka Venture Labs and the Draper Venture Network. Blume focuses on Seed to Pre-Series A stages of funding and has made over 100 investments across its 10-year history across multiple funds. Sanjay has invested in and advises a wide portfolio of startups including GreyOrange Robotics, Dataweave, Locus, Tricog, LBB, Lulu, Lambdatest, TapChief (acquired by Unacademy), Nektar.ai, and Obviously.ai amongst others.What is the trajectory for Indian startups expanding abroad? How do they start in India and move to the US and SEA? How can startups build and sell remotely and operate in a virtual world? What are the repercussions of localization when internationalization? Sanjay, as an active investor in the space, brings his experience in answering all these questions and more!Sign up for Chinaccelerator 20 Demo Day Nov 24 at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chinaccelerator-demo-day-20-livestream-20-tickets-188035859317?aff=podcastShow Notes02:10 Introduction to Sanjay Nath02:55 Sanjay's transition from consulting to VC07:41 The trend of Indian startups expanding overseas11:20 Overcoming the barriers of cross-border expansion16:38 How Blume VC supports startups with their expertise and best practices24:10 Localisation vs Internationalisation from Day 128:22 Popular revenue models among Indian startups31:04 The second-order effect of Covid19 on cross-border expansion38:22 Opportunities for Indian SaaS companies in China41:05 Leveraging diaspora and ecosystems to expand to the US and Europe45:17 Sanjay's final thoughts Many thanks to our guests Sanjay Nath; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David Xu; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.comShare, subscribe, review, enjoy!To join our listener group on WeChat, please add SOSV Helper (WeChat ID: sosvhero) and ask for the group invitation.To subscribe to our newsletter, please visit www.asiastartuppulse.comFollow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asia-startup-pulseEmail us: asp-team@asiastartuppulse.com
Sign up for Chinaccelerator 20 Demo Day Nov 24 at:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chinaccelerator-demo-day-20-livestream-20-tickets-188035859317?aff=podcastWe will come back with the brand-new season soon. Until then, stay tuned.ASP Selection: Inside the VC Mind (II)In today's rebroadcast, Inside the VC Mind Part II, we invite Sanjay Nath, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Blume Ventures, one of India's leading early-stage venture funds. Sanjay also represents Blume on the boards of Arka Venture Labs and the Draper Venture Network. Blume focuses on Seed to Pre-Series A stages of funding and has made over 100 investments across its 10-year history across multiple funds. Sanjay has invested in and advises a wide portfolio of startups including GreyOrange Robotics, Dataweave, Locus, Tricog, LBB, Lulu, Lambdatest, TapChief (acquired by Unacademy), Nektar.ai, and Obviously.ai amongst others.What is the trajectory for Indian startups expanding abroad? How do they start in India and move to the US and SEA? How can startups build and sell remotely and operate in a virtual world? What are the repercussions of localization when internationalization? Sanjay, as an active investor in the space, brings his experience in answering all these questions and more!Show Notes02:10 Introduction to Sanjay Nath02:55 Sanjay's transition from consulting to VC07:41 The trend of Indian startups expanding overseas11:20 Overcoming the barriers of cross-border expansion16:38 How Blume VC supports startups with their expertise and best practices24:10 Localisation vs Internationalisation from Day 128:22 Popular revenue models among Indian startups31:04 The second-order effect of Covid19 on cross-border expansion38:22 Opportunities for Indian SaaS companies in China41:05 Leveraging diaspora and ecosystems to expand to the US and Europe45:17 Sanjay's final thoughts Many thanks to our guests Sanjay Nath; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.comShare, subscribe, review, enjoy!To join our listener group on WeChat, please add SOSV Helper (WeChat ID: sosvhero) and ask for the group invitation.To subscribe to our newsletter, please visit www.asiastartuppulse.comFollow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asia-startup-pulseEmail us: asp-team@asiastartuppulse.com
Last fortnight, India added 500 more “Tech Crorepatis” as Freshdesk Inc IPOed at a valuation of $13 billion making it the first Indian SaaS company to get listed on Nasdaq. For more details - https://ajuniorvc.com/freshworks-india-saas-zoho-unicorn-ipo-story-history-girish/
Shihab Muhammed, Founder & CEO SurveySparrow chats with Amit Somani, Managing Partner Prime Venture Partners.Shihab is someone who has been in Indian SaaS ecosystem from the first day of his career. His first job after college was at Zoho and after that he was the part of Freshworks founding team and now he is building a SaaS startup himself. Listen to the podcast to learn about01:00 - The Launch of Shihab's SaaS Career at Zoho07:00 - Freshworks' Early Days & Shihab's Joining Story11:00 - How to Grow at a High-Growth Startup18:00 - The Idea & Inspiration for SurveySparrow24:00 - Emerging Trends in the Global SaaS Market34:00 - How to Keep Learning as a Founder Click here to read the full transcriptEnjoyed listening to Shihab on how SaaS is evolving and the latest SaaS trends? Next, listen to Chargebee Co-Founder and CEO, Krish Subramanian talk about how to align pricing with customer success, how to expand into new markets, the necessity of qualitative metrics and how partnerships can help build a SaaS business. Enjoyed the podcast? Please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and subscribe wherever you are listening to this.Follow Prime Venture Partners:Twitter: https://twitter.com/Primevp_inLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/primevp/ This podcast is for you. Do let us know what you like about the podcast, what you don't like, the guests you'd like to have on the podcast and the topics you'd like us to cover in future episodes. Please share your feedback here: https://primevp.in/podcastfeedback
This week in Indian Startup News, Vinata Aeromobility to introduce their hybrid flying car, Freshworks successful IPO makes 500 employees crorepatis, OYO expected to file for IPO next week, Agnikul Cosmos signs a deal with ISRO to test their rockets, Karnataka bans ‘games of chance', Dream11 turns profitable, Ola sells electric scooters worth Rs 1,100 crore in two days, Infra.Market acquires RDC Concrete and Byju's acquires Tynker. In funding news, Cars24 raises $450 million, Medikabazaar raises $75 million and ZestMoney raises $50 million. Vinata Aeromobility to introduce their hybrid flying car: Vinata Aeromobility is all set to launch their autonomous hybrid flying car – which is said to be Asia's first – at the Helitech Expo in London on 5th October. They will be starting the trials of their hybrid-electric car by 2023 and expect commercial flights by 2025. Freshworks successful IPO makes 500 employees crorepatis: Freshworks has raised $1.03 billion in their IPO at a $10.13 billion valuation – making them India's first SaaS startup to go public in the US. In the process, more than 500 of their employees have turned crorepatis. OYO expected to file for IPO next week: Indian hotel chain startup OYO is expected to file for IPO as soon as next week. While the pandemic has been hard for them, they have already turned profitable at an operational level and are planning to raise $1.2 billion in the IPO. Agnikul Cosmos signs a deal with ISRO to test their rockets: After Skyroot Aerospace, Agnikul Cosmos has signed an agreement with ISRO to test their rocket systems at ISRO facilities. Karnataka bans ‘games of chance': Karnataka has passed a bill banning ‘games of chance'. While that doesn't seem like a big deal – what might be troubling for some online gaming platforms is the fact that Karnataka's Chief Minister Basavaraja Bommai has said that the government will act against operators and abettors who run ‘games of chance' disguised as ‘games of skill'. Dream11 turns profitable: India's most valuable gaming startup Dream11 has turned their finances around and joined the league of profitable startups like Zerodha, Nykaa, OfBusiness and Boat. Ola sells electric scooters worth Rs 1,100 crore in two days: Ola Electric managed to sell electric scooters Ola S1 and S1 Pro worth ₹1,100 crore in two days – concluding their first sale. Infra.Market acquires RDC Concrete: Marketplace for procuring construction materials Infra.Market has acquired RDC Concrete – which is the largest independent ready mixed concrete company in India – for $100 million. Byju's acquires Tynker: Edtech giant Byju's has acquired US-based coding platform Tynker – making it their 9th acquisition this year. Cars24 raises $450 million: Used car marketplace Cars24 has raised $450 million in a round led by DST Global, Falcon Edge Capital, Softbank Vision Fund 2 at a $1.84 billion valuation. Medikabazaar raises $75 million: B2B online marketplace for procuring hospital supplies Medikabazaar has raised $75 million in a round led by CDC Group, Creaegis Limited, CIF, HealthQuad Fund. ZestMoney raises $50 million: Buy now pay later (BNPL) platform ZestMoney has raised $50 million from Australia's Zip to strengthen their product suite by launching new insurance and savings products and add more merchants on their platform.
Freshworks, which just listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, has become the poster child for Indian SaaS startups that want to build global businesses. Mohit Bhatnagar, Managing Director at Sequoia India, talks with Freshworks co-founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham about the early design choices on product, pricing and positioning that made the company so successful. The conversation took place in July 2021 during an AMA at Surge, our rapid scale-up program for early-stage startups. Show Notes Everything begins with framing the customer problem well (2:19)Dreaming in increments to create a wedge (4:36)Sharpening product differentiation to support outbound sales (6:16)Using pricing as a weapon, and landing the first set of customers (10:33)How churn is a killer in product-led growth (13:05)Building a global company with its soul in Chennai (15:23)Increasing your standard of giving (18:45)Feeling like an Indian athlete that has a chance to run at the Olympics (21:45)
Indian SaaS start-ups have raised $4.3 billion (across 282 deals) in funding since the beginning of 2020, and nine out of the 10 SaaS unicorns were created since 2018, according to data released by Venture Intelligence. Listen to the podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/business-line/message
India today is home to some of the most innovative and valuable startups in the world. With a thriving startup ecosystem that is seeing more and more foreign capital injection and innovation across the board from tech to business models, Indian startups are well positioned to take on the global startup ecosystem. Although the domestic market is already huge enough, more Indian SaaS startups are venturing out and expanding across borders. In today's episode, we invite Sanjay Nath, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Blume Ventures, one of India's leading early-stage venture funds. Sanjay also reprerepresents Blume on the boards of Arka Venture Labs and the Draper Venture Network. Blume focuses on Seed to Pre-Series A stages of funding and has made over 100 investments across its 10-year history across multiple funds. Sanjay has invested in and advises a wide portfolio of startups including GreyOrange Robotics, Dataweave, Locus, Tricog, LBB, Lulu, Lambdatest, TapChief (acquired by Unacademy), Nektar.ai, and Obviously.ai amongst others. What is the trajectory for Indian startups expanding abroad? How do they start in India and move to US and SEA? How can startups build and sell remotely and operate in a virtual world? What are the repercussions of localization when internationalization? Sanjay, as an active investor in the space, brings his experience in answering all these questions and more!Show Notes01:35 Introduction to Sanjay Nath02:20 Sanjay's transition from consulting to VC07:06 The trend of Indian startups expanding overseas10:54 Overcoming the barriers of cross-border expansion16:03 How Blume VC supports startups with their expertise and best practices23:35 Localisation vs Internationalisation from Day 127:47 Popular revenue models among Indian startups30:29 The second-order effect of Covid19 on cross-border expansion37:47 Opportunities for Indian SaaS companies in China40:30 Leveraging diaspora and ecosystems to expand to the US and Europe44:42 Sanjay's final thoughts Many thanks to our guests Sanjay Nath; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.comShare, subscribe, review, enjoy!To join our listener group on WeChat, please add SOSV Helper (WeChat ID: sosvhero) and ask for the group invitation.To subscribe to our newsletter, please visit www.asiastartuppulse.comFollow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asia-startup-pulseEmail us: asp-team@asiastartuppulse.com
In today's episode, we invite Sanjay Nath, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Blume Ventures, one of India's leading early-stage venture funds. Sanjay also reprerepresents Blume on the boards of Arka Venture Labs and the Draper Venture Network. Blume focuses on Seed to Pre-Series A stages of funding and has made over 100 investments across its 10-year history across multiple funds. Sanjay has invested in and advises a wide portfolio of startups including GreyOrange Robotics, Dataweave, Locus, Tricog, LBB, Lulu, Lambdatest, TapChief (acquired by Unacademy), Nektar.ai, and Obviously.ai amongst others.What is the trajectory for Indian startups expanding abroad? How do they start in India and move to the US and SEA? How can startups build and sell remotely and operate in a virtual world? What are the repercussions of localization when internationalization? Sanjay, as an active investor in the space, brings his experience in answering all these questions and more! Show Notes01:35 Introduction to Sanjay Nath02:20 Sanjay's transition from consulting to VC07:06 The trend of Indian startups expanding overseas10:54 Overcoming the barriers of cross-border expansion16:03 How Blume VC supports startups with their expertise and best practices23:35 Localisation vs Internationalisation from Day 127:47 Popular revenue models among Indian startups30:29 The second-order effect of Covid19 on cross-border expansion37:47 Opportunities for Indian SaaS companies in China40:30 Leveraging diaspora and ecosystems to expand to the US and Europe44:42 Sanjay's final thoughts Many thanks to our guests Sanjay Nath; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.comShare, subscribe, review, enjoy!To join our listener group on WeChat, please add SOSV Helper (WeChat ID: sosvhero) and ask for the group invitation.To subscribe to our newsletter, please visit www.asiastartuppulse.comFollow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asia-startup-pulseEmail us: asp-team@asiastartuppulse.com
Alice Besomi is the VP of Investments and known as the queen of SaaS at Jungle Ventures. They have invested in a lot of startups in India working in SaaS, consumer technology, fintech and SME tech, including Moglix (one of India's latest unicorns), along with Livspace, LeapFinance, CityMall, Turtlemint, among many others. In this video, Alice and Prithvi discuss all things SaaS – talking about interesting SaaS business ideas to understanding key metrics while building a SaaS startup to what are the investors looking for when investing in a SaaS startup. Introduction SaaS - Building from India for the World Interesting SaaS business ideas Key metrics to understand when building a SaaS startup How VCs value an early-stage SaaS startup Drawbacks of Indian SaaS startups and how to revamp Growth of India and Southeast Asia as the land of SaaS Understanding vertical/horizontal SaaS and the CRM market When building a SaaS business: go local or global? Scalability or Profitability? SaaS business models Disruptive SaaS ideas Future of SaaS
Du and Wipro have announced the launch of their multi-cloud platform that aims to simplify, accelerate digital transformation and cloud adoption across the UAE. It is set to help organizations reimagine their infrastructure, create new cost inefficiencies and deliver more secure solutions.Huawei and Temenos have teamed up to allow Temeonos' cloud-native core banking solution on Huawei's public cloud. It would focus on the APAC region, with a focus on China and other areas. With the move, banks would be able to achieve their go-to-market strategy and open up new business models.REvil, a cybercriminal group, used flaws in Kaseya's update system to target hundreds of businesses in a devastating ransomware attack. The ransom demand is the highest in recent memory, and if paid, it will be the most expensive ransom ever paid in response to a cyberattack. The attackers hit MSPs' Kaseya infrastructure, then the MSPs inadvertently distributed malware to their clients by seeding their ransomware using Kaseya's trusted distribution method.Intervue, an Indian SaaS hiring platform, has completed a seed round led by Titan Capital for an undisclosed amount. The funds will be used to grow the product and strengthen the core staff. Intervue combines live coding and video conferencing with other tools like whiteboarding, take-home projects, a question bank, and more to enable a company to hire better employees faster.Cairo-based MaxAB, a B2B e-commerce platform connecting food and grocery retailers to suppliers, has raised $40M in Series A funding from North Africa's investor RMBV. The company would look to expand its market other regions, especially the MENA, and scale its recently launched business verticalsLocad, an eCommerce logistics business, has raised $4.9 million in a seed round led by Sequoia Capital India's Surge program. The funds will be used to develop the startup's courier and distribution networks. Locad is a company that offers an “end-to-end solution” to cross-border e-commerce businesses.
BrowserStack, a software testing platform, has announced its Series B fundraise of $200 million from BOND, at a valuation of $4 billion, making it the highest for any Indian SaaS unicorn. Insight Partners and existing investor Accel participated in the funding. The Series B fundraising makes BrowserStack India's second SaaS unicorn this year, after Chargebee, which attained the tag in April. In its press release, BrowserStack stated that the funding would be used to support its acquisitions, expand its product offerings, and scale growth. Miami-based Novo, a digital banking platform for small businesses, has raised $40.7 million in a Valar Ventures-led Series A funding round. Other investors – Crosslink Capital, Rainfall Ventures, Red Sea Ventures, and BoxGroup – participated in the funding round, the company said in its press release. The company stated that it would use the proceeds from the investment to introduce new capabilities for assisting small businesses save time and money by optimizing their cash flow.Tel Aviv-based Bringg, a cloud platform that helps retailers and logistics providers in last-mile delivery operations, has announced its Series E fundraise worth $100 million, led by Insight Partners at a valuation of $1 billion. The Series E fundraising grants it the unicorn status, making it the first company in last-mile delivery and fulfillment cloud technology to attain the status, its press release said.Vianai Systems, an AI startup, has announced that it has raised $140 million in a Series B funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The Palo Alto-headquartered startup said that many industry stalwarts participated in this round. The new round takes the total to at least $190 million. 20 minute VC podcaster Harry Stebbings has raised funding for 20VC. The current raise represents a 15-fold increase over the $8.3 million initial funds, which was launched less than a year ago. Mr. Stebbings' early-stage fund, 20VC Early, will invest $250,000 to $750,000, while his growth-stage fund, 20VC Explorer, will invest $1 million to $5 million. DuckDuckGo, an online privacy startup, has claimed a $100M revenue increase. This growth is attributed to secondary investment from existing and new investors. In the last year, its apps have been downloaded over 50 million times. The company intends to extend its operations throughout Europe and other parts of the world.Copenhagen-based Templafy, a B2B business document creation SaaS platform, has raised $60 million in its Series D funding round led by Blue Cloud Ventures. Existing investors – Insight Partners, Seed Capital, Dawn Capital, and Damgaard Company – had participated in the round, reports state.Gloat, a talent marketplace platform helping enterprises worldwide harness talent, has announced its Series C fundraise worth $57 million, led by Accel. Existing investors – Eight Roads Ventures, Intel Capital, Magma Venture Partners, and PICO Partners-participated in the funding round. Trigo, a retail checkout system developer, has raised $10M (the exact amount is undisclosed). Its total funding has crossed $100M with this funding, and it looks to partner with Germany's REWE Group to help them set up a ‘grab and go' shopping experience for its new store in Cologne.Brella, a hybrid event platform, has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Connected Capital. The platform, previously utilized as an offline networking tool, shifted from live events to a virtual event platform once the pandemic struck.Introhive, AI-powered sales, and revenue acceleration platform, has raised $100 million in a Series C funding round led by PSG, a growth equity firm. Other investors include Mavan Capital Partners, The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), and Evergreen Capital.
Amit is the founder and CEO of iMocha, a skills assessment solution API platform that helps organizations with their hiring. Previously he was the founder of Radix Business Models, an IT services and outsourcing company. In this interview Amit spoke about his journey as a founder, transitioning from services to products company, the nuances of building an assessment product and more with Roshan Cariappa. Key highlights of this conversation: 00:00 Introduction 00:53 Founding journey and key milestones 11:53 Transitioning from Services to products 18:02 Nuances of achieving product market fit 24:08 Standing out in the crowded recruitment space 29:07 Nuances of building an assessment product 37:58 Closing the loop on quality of hire 41:08 Pros v/s Cons of working with the HR function 44:22 High level Challenges Amit is solving now 48:03 Nuances of going from $1-10M in SaaS 51:01 Improving ACV and Customer Marketing 54:57 The Indian SaaS ecosystem 57:27 Optimism for the future ------------------------------------- Connect with Amit: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amitdmishra/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/amitdmishra ------------------------------------- Connect with Us: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/startupoperator Twitter: https://twitter.com/OperatorStartup ------------------------------------- If you liked this episode, let us know by hitting the like button and share with your friends and family. Please also remember to subscribe to our channel and switch on the notifications to never miss an episode! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/startup-operator/message
FarEye, an Indian SaaS start-up that helps firms globally optimize their supply chain, and logistics operations, raises $100 million in its Series E round. The funding was co-led by high-profile backers TCV, and Dragoneer Investment Group. FarEye helps companies orchestrate, track, and optimize their logistics operations. With it's funds, the firm is looking to further expand the team, and is also open to exploring acquisition of smaller firms, in international markets. B Capital Group, the six-year-old venture capital fund formed by Facebook co-founder, Eduardo Saverin, and Bain Capital veteran, Raj Ganguly, is doubling down on China as it looks to allocate $500 million to $1 billion of its fund, into Chinese tech companies over the next few years. With $1.9 billion assets under management, B Capital is going after enterprise software providers in China, an area that has seen explosive growth, but is still only a fraction the size of the U.S. SaaS market. Resolve , a San Francisco-based start-up, in the space specializing in buy now, pay later capabilities for B2B transactions, raises $60 million in funding. Initialized Capital, led the funding round. This is the company's first funding since its 2019 inception. The funding is a combination of equity, and asset funding. The San Francisco start-up is using the money primarily to grow its embedded billing platform. Interactio, a remote interpretation platform whose customers include massive institutions like the United Nations, European Commission, and the Parliament, along with corporates like BMW, JP Morgan, and Microsoft, raises $30 million Series A. The Series A funding was led by Eight Roads Ventures, and Silicon Valley based - Storm Ventures. The funds will be used for enhancing its tech, and UX - UI, with a focus on ensuring ease of access and simplicity, and on upgrading the tools it provides to interpreters. EYs3D Microelectronics, a fabless design house, that focuses on end-to-end software, and hardware systems for computer vision technology, raises $7 million in Series A. The new funding will be used to expand eYs3D's product development, and launch a series of 3D computer vision modules. It also will work with new business partners to expand its platform and hire more talent. AcuityMD raises $7M, to better track the evolving world of medical hardware. AcuityMD, is a data platform that tracks the entire medical device lifecycle from the sale of an item, to a patient's outcome after a surgery. Microsoft, today announced Py-Torch Enterprise, a new Azure service that provides developers with additional support, when using Py-Torch on Azure. Py-Torch is a Python-centric open-source machine learning framework, with a focus on computer vision and natural language processing. French start-up Matera, raises a new $43 million Series B funding round, led by Mubadala Capital, to turn residential building management, into SaaS. The company is building a vertical SaaS, for residential property management. With the funding round, Matera plans to expand to Germany.
Networking giant Cisco is looking to invest $3 million to $5 million in Indian enterprise SaaS start-ups for a minority stake. The company has a portfolio of about 10 start-ups that it has already invested in directly or through investment partnerships with VC funds.Whatfix, Videonetics, Mobikwik, Mobstac and CloudCherry are some of the start-ups in its portfolio in India. Tackle.io, a software company dedicated to helping software providers generate revenue through the Cloud Marketplaces, today announced it has raised $35 million in Series B funding, in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz and joined by existing investor Bessemer Venture Partners. This round of funding will be used to further Tackle's platform innovation and mission to transform the experience of selling and buying enterprise software.Vindicia, part of the Amdocs Media Division and a provider in business-to-consumer digital services monetisation, has extended its long-standing engagement with Vimeo.Vindicia provides Vimeo with a complete subscription management and retention solution to maximise customer lifetime value and business agility.Sydney-based SaaS provider Alcami Interactive has been acquired by US-based Criteria, a SaaS people analytics platform vendor.Alcami was founded by chief executive Jane Bianchini in 2014 and provides an on-demand video interviewing platform.Security firm McAfee announced this morning that it will be selling its enterprise business to a consortium led by the private equity firm Symphony Technology Group for $4 billion.McAfee President and Chief Executive Officer Peter Leav says that his company has decided to direct the firm's resources to the consumer side of the business. “This transaction will allow McAfee to singularly focus on our consumer business and to accelerate our strategy to be a leader in personal security for consumers,” he said in a statement.
In the latest episode of The Takeaway Club™, I speak with the one of the best storytellers in the Indian SaaS ecosystem, and a personal favorite. the one and only Sairam Krishnan. Sairam Krishnan started his career is SaaS ~10 years ago when he joined Freshworks (Freshdesk back then) as only the #2 Marketing hire at a time when you could fit in the entire company into a Toyota Innova! Over the years he has successfully lead/implemented world-class marketing campaigns including the Failsforce blimp that flew over the Dreamforce conference and has led the marketing efforts for companies like Wingify, Imocha. In his current stint, he crafts beautiful startup stories for Accel as Marketer in Residence. Apart from this he also authors two Substack publications, the CMO journal where he writes about marketing, growth, and strategy and the East Coast Road where he talks about his personal experiences, travel, and his love for tea. In this conversation we get candid about Sairam's time at Freshworks as an early employee, and what it was like working directly under Girish, how Sairam has evolved as a marketer and a writer over the years, the current state of the SaaS ecosystem among other pieces of timeless insights.
It's refreshing to track a new breed of India SaaS companies focused on building tools for software developers and programmers globally. While BrowserStack is on track to achieve $100 million ARR soon, there's Postman, and then, there's Hasura.This is what makes tracking India SaaS so fulfilling and thrilling for storytellers like me. Unlike the past waves of IT outsourcing and the rise of India's e-commerce startups, the country's SaaS ecosystem offers variety and there are so many potential winners.Hasura's founders Tanmai Gopal and Rajoshi Ghosh combine their passion for deep engineering with their ability to build great products. Launched in 2017, Hasura already counts SoftBank Robotics, one of Spain's largest banks--BBVA, and several global companies among its top customers.Early in the journey, they made a bold pivot by killing the cash-rich consulting business to build a product.With Hasura, Tanmai and Rajoshi are also riding an early wave.“It's like when Mongo was starting and people were like, well this doesn't make any sense, but you know, Mongo became popular or when virtualization was happening and AWS was happening, it was like the cloud doesn't make any sense but it happened,” Tanmai tells me in this podcast. “Hasura is in that kind of exciting but scary class of things that it can be category creating. A product like Hasura has not existed before. It is a weird product. It makes you hyper productive, but it is a shift in architecture and that means that when Hasura is everywhere, people will assume that it is the right way to do things, but the journey to doing that is obviously the most painful journey in the world.”In this episode of SaaSBOOMi Podcast, Tanmai shares the backstory, and how they are building Hasura, tool by tool. Listen to this podcast to learn more about how Hasura is helping developers make sense of big data and preparing for a world where programming will go mainstream in schools. This conversation also offers insights into building a deep engineering startup and catching a wave early on.
Sometime during the year 2017, Ankit Oberoi, the founder of AdPushup, was staring at a potential failure. With $1 million in ARR after a journey of three years since he started, Ankit was struggling to find the growth levers for AdPushup, which had a 25-members team back then. “We lost about half the team, we were at a low point, and it was a do or die. There's something we haven't shared publicly ever, is that we were almost ready to go for an acqui-hire,” Ankit tells me in this podcast. "We were on a ventilator, not just a startup valley of death."Over the next two years, Ankit hustled through the market to achieve $10 Million ARR in recovering from that stage. This didn't just mean survival, but the experience helped AdPushup create a blueprint for creating a scalable enterprise model.How did he do it?It all started with the simple idea of giving it “one last push” as Ankit recalls, this time, moving the entire company towards the enterprise market opportunity. The product changed too, from being SMB-focused to more mid-market customer segments and large enterprises. AdPushup's journey from $1 million in ARR to $10 million gross revenues happened in 12-13 months after this pivot. Listen to this podcast with Ankit Oberoi of AdPushup to learn from his playbook of $1 million to $10 million in ARR, and what it takes to create a product, sales, and organizational building blocks for the journey through crises and beyond.
Hindsight isn't just a luxury, as many believe. For founders, hindsight or the ability to look back at the events and learn from them with blunt honesty, is priceless. Just ask the second-time founders such as Ketan Kapoor, the co-founder of Mettl, who sold his startup to Mercer after a long, slow burn. Mettl is a SaaS platform for online assessment. “If I start something again, I will not raise money for the first three years, not because I can afford it, but because I can run it that way,” Ketan tells me in this conversation. “The more you can push it out (the funding), the more you can set up a business, which looks solid and sustainable.”There's too much focus on the ongoing entrepreneurial journeys. Don't get me wrong. It's absolutely needed to keep bringing learnings from the journey as it evolves. What needs to be unlocked more is a goldmine of candid insights from founders after they have completed their entrepreneurial journeys. “There are moments in every entrepreneur's journey when you just want to be alone and want to cry, and not share anything with even your family or co-founders.”This quote from Steve Jobs captures the amazing power of hindsight well:“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”Listen to this conversation with Ketan Kapoor of Mettl to learn from his entrepreneurial journey that offers honest insights about building, failing and finding an exit for founders, employees and investors. Ketan is now preparing to become an entrepreneur again, and is looking to apply all the learnings from the Mettl journey.
EP26: {Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Partner & CEO of Upekkha} My guest from EP04 Krishi Fawani had spoken highly about Upekkha Accelerator that his company Hashtag Loyalty was participating in. Had a chance meeting with Prasanna and loved what they had to say and invited him to be on the Podcast. We talk about what it means to build a Value SaaS business, Pricing for SaaS, exploring some concepts of Effectuation as popularized by Dr. Saras Sarasvathy, and also what it is to be a startup in itself. There is a lot one can take away from this podcast and if you are a SaaS founder the deadline to apply for their next batch starting early Sep ends on Aug 15th! Book recco from Prasanna: {Monetizing Innovation - Madhavan Ramanujam} More info at : https://upekkha.io/ — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel → We also have a coffee giveaway that's still open (31st July is the last day) from EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt, co-founder of BTC! — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — About Prasanna: Worked intensely with 120+ startups to make them successful at Microsoft Accelerator India. Helped pick the right startups for Investors & Microsoft & as a founder going through similar ups & downs, he helps other founders push through. What is Upekkha? "We work with B2B SaaS startups to get you through the valley of death, to a place with predictable, scalable, profitable growth. Whether you want to build a $10M revenue business, or the next $1B SaaS unicorn, we help you accelerate." Timeline: 01:00 - Intro to Prasanna 02:15 - Upekkha becoming the YC of Indian SaaS companies 04:50 - Value SaaS is the opposite of Vanity SaaS 10:55 - Software is eating Software 15:00 - Shift in power dynamic in the world of SaaS 18:30 - Changing VC investment thesis towards SaaS 23:58 - Starting Upekkha 28:17 - Raising money for Upekkha; Rajan, Shekhar, Prasanna 33:25 - Purchase behaviour in a Do it for Me market 38:00 - Should I send a developer to fast track the process? An example. 42:30 - Pricing SaaS products 49:53 - Effectuation Concept by Dr. Saras Sarasvathy