Indian B2B SaaS startup Whatfix, which helps enterprises create interactive walkthroughs within their web applications to drive digital adoption among employees and users, has landed a USD 90 million check in its Series D round led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.
Eight Roads Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Dragoneer Investment Group, F-Prime Capital, and Cisco Investments also participated in the deal, which quadrupled the valuation of the seven-year-old startup to USD 600 million.
In February 2020, Whatfix had raised a USD 32 million Series C round at a USD 150 million valuation. With the recent funding, the startup has now received a total of USD 139.8 million in venture capital to date.
Whatfix, which currently has a presence in the US, the UK, and Australia, plans to use the fresh funds to expand into new markets such as the Asia Pacific and Europe. The funding will also be used for accelerating product innovation and bolstering data analysis and machine learning capabilities, local media Economic Times (ET) reported.
“Our business has grown 2x in the last one year due to digital adoption being a fast-growing category. We expect to replicate the same growth in the current year as well,” Khadim Batti, co-founder and CEO, Whatfix told ET.
Founded in 2014 by Batti and Vara Kumar Namburu, Whatfix has onboarded over 500 customers globally. The list includes firms like Wipro, Experian, Cisco, The Netherlands Red Cross, Sentry Financial Services, and Cardinal Health Canada.
With the tools that can be integrated into a company’s web apps to enable the workforce and customers to use them more efficiently, Whatfix claims to increase employee productivity by 35%, reduce training time and costs by 60%, and increase application data accuracy by 20%.
The Bengaluru-based startup competes with global companies like Apty, WalkMe, Appcues, Userlane, and Pendo.
Whatfix is SoftBank’s third investment in India this year after social commerce startup Meesho and banking tech company Zeta. Both Meesho and Zeta have turned into unicorns—those with a valuation over USD 1 billion—with SoftBank’s backing.
In the first five months of 2021, SoftBank has invested USD 2 billion in India and is reportedly planning to pump in up to USD 4 billion this year, primarily in startups across SaaS, B2B marketplaces, e-commerce, health tech, and edtech. Currently, SoftBank is considering writing checks for e-tailer Flipkart, food tech giant Swiggy, and business-to-business e-commerce platform OfBusiness.
