Whatfix in talks to raise up to $90 million from SoftBank VF

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup Whatfix is in active talks to raise $80-90 million as a part of its Series D round, led by SoftBank Vision Fund II, at a valuation of $500-550 million, said two people aware of the discussions, seeking anonymity.

This will mark SoftBank’s second investment in the Indian SaaS sector in five months. The Japanese conglomerate backed sales-enablement platform, MindTickle, last November, leading the startup’s $100-million round.

The talks with US-based Whatfix come a year after the startup raised $32 million as a part of its Series C round led by Sequoia Capital India. Existing investors, including Sequoia India, are expected to participate in the round, said the people mentioned above.

The proposed funding round will push the company’s valuation by more than three-fold in just over a year. Whatfix had raised its Series C round at a post-money valuation of $150 million in February 2020.

Whatfix, owned by Quicko Technosoft Labs Pvt. Ltd, counts Eight Roads Ventures, F-Prime Capital, Cisco Investments, Powerhouse Ventures, and Stellaris Venture Partners as investors.

The eight-year-old startup is a digital adoption platform that helps companies create and integrate interactive walkthroughs on any website or web application, helping accelerate the software adoption journey for end-customers. Through its suite of products, the company also helps businesses with performance support, change management and training.

“Whatfix has seen revenues almost double because of digital adoption spurred by the coronavirus pandemic and has added more than 120 enterprise customers during this period. This might be giving SoftBank the necessary confidence to invest, which is now actively looking at the Indian SaaS segment,” said one of the people cited above.

In the last one year, Whatfix has also hired 260 employees globally.

Whatfix did not respond to Mint’s queries till press time.

In February 2020, the company had more than 500 enterprise customers, including beer-maker Heineken, online fashion retailer Myntra, robotic-process automation provide Automation Anywhere, and global credit report company, Experian.

The covid-19 pandemic has caused renewed interest among investors in India’s SaaS industry.

On Monday, cloud data protection and management services provider Druva Inc. almost doubled its valuation to $2 billion as a part of its $147-million funding round. Last month, SaaS unicorn, Icertis nearly tripled its valuation to $2.8 billion as a part of its latest fund raising round.

In December, Zenoti, a customer relationship management-solution provider for salons, was the latest startup to join India’s growing list of SaaS unicorns, after raising $160 million as part of its Series D round.

Investments in Indian SaaS companies had grown by 20% from $670 million in the first half of 2019 to $830 million in the first half of 2020, according to a Bain and Co., a top management consulting firm report. The report also said that Indian SaaS companies are poised to reach $18-20 billion in revenue and capture 7-9% share of the global SaaS market by 2022.