Indian-origin entrepreneur’s HighRadius is the first unicorn of 2020

Bengaluru: HighRadius, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based platform facilitating back-office functions on Tuesday said it has raised $125 million at a valuation of $1 billion, becoming the latest Indian firm to join the unicorn club.

The Series B growth funding round was led by San Francisco-based private investment firm ICONIQ Capital, the company said in a statement. Existing investors Susquehanna Growth Equity and Citi Ventures also participated in the round. Unicorn is a term used to describe startups valued at $1 billion or more.

The software as a service (SaaS) firm, headquartered in Hyderabad and Houston, is the 25th Indian startup to become a unicorn. Co-founded in 2006 by Indian-origin entrepreneur Sashi Narahari, it remained bootstrapped until its first funding round in 2017.

Till date, the company has raised $175 million across three rounds, including the $50 million it raised in September 2017.

HighRadius allows businesses to automate key back-office functions such as trade receivables and treasury management. It uses an AI platform to automate routine financial tasks and for predicting invoice payment dates. Its clients include top companies such as Adidas, Cargill, Danone, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson and Starbucks.

“Today marks an important milestone for HighRadius and we’re thrilled to have ICONIQ join us in our vision to modernize the order-to-cash space. ICONIQ combines patient capital with a long-term vision of investing in category-defining businesses, and the firm has worked with some of the world’s most successful tech entrepreneurs,” Narahari, also the president and CEO of HighRadius, said in a statement.

India added a record nine new unicorns last year, compared to eight in 2018. The newest unicorns of 2019 included logistics startup Delhivery, cloud-based enterprise contract manager Icertis, gaming startup Dream11, cloud data protection and management platform Druva, logistics firm Rivigo and Ola Electric, the electric vehicle arm of cab hailer Ola.

“As we have seen in many of our portfolio companies and past investments, including BlackLine and Coupa, digital transformation is increasingly a CFO priority. The HighRadius platform is game-changing for CFOs and finance departments, and the company has earned tremendous customer loyalty by enabling receivables and treasury teams to perform more efficiently and effectively, and by delivering mission-critical RoI,” said Will Griffith, partner at ICONIQ Capital.