Unicorn season continues

Good morning!

Yet another startup enters the unicorn club this month. And this time, it is SaaS startup Chargebee, which raised $125 million in Series G funding, tripling its valuation to $1.4 billion.

The round was co-led by new investor Sapphire Ventures and existing investors Tiger Global and Insight Venture Partners, along with participation from another existing investor, Steadview Capital. 

Founded in 2011 by Rajaraman Santhanam, Thiyagarajan Thiyagu, Saravanan KP (CTO), and Krish Subramaniam (CEO), the San Francisco-based startup automates complex billing and revenue operation challenges that arise as subscription businesses scale into large enterprises.

The new round of funding will allow Chargebee to expand its global footprint and further add to its partnership network.

Earlier this month, PharmEasy, Groww, CRED, Gupshup, ShareChat, and Meesho also turned into unicorns, signalling brighter days for the Indian startup ecosystem. 

A NASSCOM report earlier predicted that India will have 50 unicorns by the end of 2021, but that number may be crossed even sooner. 

According to YourStory Research, the amount of funding raised and the number of deals seen in Q1’21 was the highest across the past five consecutive quarters.

The Interview

In India, money primarily flows from Silicon Valley and from China. Gopal Srinivasan, Chairman and MD, TVS Capital Fund — India's largest rupee capital fund, argues that Indian families have become more open to investing in startups through private equity, and they form the backbone of Indian businesses. He says that Rs 45,000 crore of Indian money is being invested in AIFs each year, signalling a willingness in Indians to invest.

Editor’s Pick: Product Roadmap

While running hiring and assessment portal OptimizedBits, Rhitiman Majumder, Gaurav Mangla, and Ankit Kaushik felt the lack of transparency in logistics and the prices that courier companies charged varied highly. This led them to start Pickrr Technologies as a plug-and-play logistics company for any direct seller or SME seller to ship products from anywhere in India to end customers. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

EduFund aims to make financial planning for higher education transparent

Eela Dubey had to drop out of a master's programme at Columbia University because she could not afford the tuition. To ensure that others don't go through the same experience, she founded EduFund, a startup that helps parents and kids plan for higher education and instil the importance of saving and investing. Read more.

News & Updates

• Tech Mahindra has acquired DigitalOnUS, a hybrid cloud and DevOps services provider, for $120 million to augment hybrid-cloud offerings for enterprise customers globally. Tech Mahindra had acquired 100 percent stake in the organisation.

• Twitter India announced the appointment of former Uber executive Apurva Dalal as Director of Engineering, while also hiring for several other positions to strengthen the engineering team in Bengaluru.

• Zoom announced the launch of Zoom Apps Fund, a new $100 million venture fund created to stimulate the growth of the Zoom ecosystem. Through this fund, the company will invest in portfolio companies looking to revolutionise the way Zoom customers interact.

• Mobile gaming platform Mobile Premier League (MPL) has acquired city-based e-sports gaming platform, GamingMonk. As part of the transaction, MPL has absorbed the complete GamingMonk team.

• Microsoft India has made the general availability of Dynamics 365 Business Central, a comprehensive business management solution for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) to ensure business continuity.

Before you go, stay inspired with… 

“We started the company thinking that every SaaS company should not have to build certain components themselves and we should be able to provide that API.”

— Krish Subramanian, Co-founder, Chargebee

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