With $125 mn fundraise, Chargebee is the latest SaaS unicorn

San Francisco, California and Chennai based revenue management and subscription billing platform Chargebee on Tuesday announced it has raised $125 million (Rs 941.29 crore) in a growth round, dubbed Series G, as it eyes global expansion. 

The round was led by new investor Sapphire Ventures and returning investors, Tiger Global Management and Insight Venture Partners and Steadview Capital also participated in the round. 

With the fresh capital, the software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform is valued at $1.4 billion, almost three times the valuation it had received in its previous round of funding led by Insight Venture Partners in October 2020, said a statement issued by the company. The company has raised a total of $218.5 million in equity capital thus far, according to data sourced from VCCEdge.  

The company will use the capital to expand geographically and increase its partner network. 

Founded in 2011 by Krish Subramanian, Saravanan KP, Rajaraman Santhanam and Thiyagarajan T, Chargebee helps subscription based businesses automate recurring payments, subscription management and billing automation. The company works with customers across SaaS, direct-to-consumer ecommerce, OTT streaming, e-learning, publishing and other verticals across 60 countries. IT counts Freshworks, Study.com, Okta and others among its customers. 

“Businesses today need to quickly respond to evolving customer needs, compliance requirements and market pressures in real-time. More than ever before, businesses need their subscription revenue platform to be the reliable system of record that enables them to rapidly scale their revenue processes,” Krish Subramanian, CEO of Chargebee said in the statement. He added that Chargebee remained committed to customers for rapid value realisation. 

Chargebee also claimed that its business had seen a surge in demand as businesses moved to SaaS or subscription based models, with demand for recurring revenue streaming set to grow at 17.5% CAGR over the next five years. The company has also added usage billing for enterprise clients recently. 

“As the global shift to subscription-first models continue to grow in popularity, Chargebee has an incredibly bold vision for new products for multiple market segments,” Rajeev Dham, partner at Sapphire Ventures said in the statement. He will also be joining the company board as part of the investment.