Indian SaaS industry expected to top USD 6.5B this year

Hardly 4 months into 2022, India has already produced nearly the same number of SaaS unicorns as it had in the whole of 2021, according to a report by Chiratae-Zinnov India. This only goes to prove that the Indian SaaS ecosystem has matured significantly and holds the potential to emerge as a global leader in the next few years.

Core insights:

• This year has already been a landmark one for Indian SaaS, where the industry witnessed 50% growth in revenue and 3X growth in venture capital funding.
• This has not only accelerated the creation of SaaS unicorns at a furious pace, but also set India on the path to surpass China to become the second largest SaaS nation in the world by 2026.
• And 5 keys factors lighting the SPARK to propel India SaaS onto the global stage include – Supportive start-up policies, Proven global caliber, Abundant liquidity, Rearing domestic skilled talent, and Kindled exit options for investors.
• The Role of VCs in turbocharging Indian SaaS is immense. Investments in Indian SaaS grew 3X to over USD 4 Bn in 2021 and is expected to top USD 6.5 Bn this year.
• ~40% of the VC deals in 2021 were late-growth stage, indicating the maturity of the Indian SaaS ecosystem.

Other findings:

• Categories such as Sales & Marketing, Retail & e-Com, Healthcare, HCM, and Infrastructure were high on the VC radar
• Key SaaS categories such as Cloud-Native enablers, HIA, Cloud Security, Web3, and Verticalized solutions are expected to continue gaining traction in 2022 and beyond.

“India is a global SaaS leader 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 which 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,” said Sudhir Sethi, Founder and Chairman, Chiratae Ventures.

“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. In fact, India is fast emerging as a clear leader in SaaS, and will supersede China to become the second largest SaaS nation in the next few years,” said Pari Natarajan, CEO, Zinnov.

CT Bureau