[Funding] Billing Platform Chargebee becomes 11th unicorn with Series G fundraise of $125 million

Chennai-based subscription management platform Chargebee has become the latest unicorn in the Indian startup ecosystem. It has raised $125 million in Series G Round after which its valuation soared at $1.4 billion. The round was led by Sapphire Ventures and existing investors Tiger Global and Insight Venture Partners.

The company said its valuation saw a threefold growth since its previous financing round in October 2020 — when it had raised $55 million in its Series F round led by Insight Partners with participation from existing investors Steadview Capital and Tiger Global. In August 2019, the company had raised $14 Mn in a Series D round led by Steadview Capital, Insight Venture Partners and Accel Partners. This makes Chargebee the 11th Unicorn in 2021. In April alone, it is the 7th Unicorn.

CRED, Groww, PharmEasy, ShareChat, GupShup and Meesho crossed a valuation of $1 Bn in April 2021. Before this, insurtech startup Digit Insurance, SaaS startup InnovAccer, B2B commerce company Infra.Market and NBFC Five Star Business Finance turned into unicorns.

About Chargebee

Krish Subramanian, Rajaraman Santhanam, KP Saravanan, and Thiyagarajan co-founded the SaaS Billing startup in 2011. Interestingly, three of its co-founders- Santhanam, Saravanan, and Thiyagarajan were executives at Zoho, a major competitor of Chargebee. The company enables SaaS, e-commerce and subscription-based businesses to manage and grow their revenue. It helps automate subscriptions, billing, invoicing, payments processes. It also provides key reports, metrics and insights into their subscription business.

“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; thus enabling them to rapidly scale their revenue processes,” said Krish Subramanian, co-founder and CEO at Chargebee. “Chargebee is committed to spearheading this movement towards a subscription-first world by helping our customers realize rapid value, and being an integral partner in their long-term growth journey.”

The company claimed that large global enterprises can launch subscription plans using Chargebee’s services within days. Further, it has a net retention rate of 150%. Chargebee’s major competitors include Zoho, Zuora, Chargify and Aria Systems. Further, its customer portfolio includes the likes of access management company Okta, Freshworks, Calendly, Study.com, among others.