BENGALURU: Venture Capital investments will continue to flow into SaaS (Software as a service) companies, and is projected to reach $6.5 billion this year, a 55% increase compared to last year’s investments. Investments in Indian SaaS grew 3X to over $4.2 billion in 2021.
A report by Chiratae and Zinnov said that 90% (15 out of 17) SaaS start-ups have been accorded the unicorn status in the last four years. Companies such as Amagi, Uniphore, Hasura and Darwinbox have turned unicorns recently.
India is expected to leapfrog China and become the second-largest SaaS nation by 2026. Also, Indian SaaS has garnered a lot of interest from international VCs over the years. Sudhir Sethi, Founder and Chairman, Chiratae Ventures, said, “India is a global SaaS leader, and with over 35 SaaS companies in our portfolio like Uniphore, which recently raised $400 million and others like Pixis, Hevo Data, Healthplix, CropIn, Pando, Deepfence, and Squadcast that are valued over $3.5 billion and last year overall raised $600 million.”
Chiratae predicts that investments in Indian SaaS will continue to grow at a massive pace with the revenue poised to cross $100 billion by 2026. The report also pointed out that the next wave of digital talent will come from tier-2 and tier-3 cities, as cities like Vadodara, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Nagpur are fast emerging as the next hotbeds of digital and IT talent. It also said that the share of late-growth stage deals (Series C and beyond) grew to 39% in 2021 from 8% in 2015-17 period.
Cloud-Native is one of the key SaaS categories that will continue gaining traction and will shape the future of modern application development. Also, VC investments in Cloud-Native technologies are now crossing $7 billion in funding. Pari Natarajan, CEO, Zinnov, said, “2021 was a watershed year for Indian SaaS – including exponential valuations, successful IPO debuts, a vast influx of VC investments, and an unprecedented number of unicorns.”
Eruditus and Emeritus founder invests USD 32 mn in InnoVen Capital India Fund
Bengaluru: Edtech platform Eruditus and Emeritus founder and CEO Ashwin Damera has invested Rs 240 crore ($32 mn) in venture debt and specialty finance platform - InnoVen Capital India Fund. The investment was made via Ashwin Damera’s family office, co-managed by him and his wife Bhagyashree Damera. Following its $650 mn Series E funding in 2021, Eruditus and Emeritus is valued at $3.2 bn. The firm is backed by investors like SoftBank, Vision Fund 2, Prosus, Accel, Sequoia, Bertelsmann, and the Chan Zuckerberg initiative.