5 top investors in Indian SaaS startups – and their best bets

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Indian SaaS (software-as-a-service) has been on a high, with over 50 startups getting founded in the space each year since 2012. Last year, the funding in SaaS startups also hit a new high of US$449 million, three times as much as in the previous year, as maturing startups in the space raised series A or later rounds.

So which are the VC firms most interested in India’s SaaS story? And where are they placing their bets? Here’s a rundown of the top five investors:

Data source: Tracxn.

Accel Partners

The most active investor in this space, according to venture capital analytics firm Tracxn, is Accel Partners. This is based on both the number of deals and the size of deals.

Accel’s portfolio in India includes Freshdesk, the leading SaaS player from Chennai which recently became the first Indian startup to enter Gartner’s magic quadrant for customer engagement. Other significant ones include Chargebee, MindTickle and CleverTap (earlier named WizRocket).

Just last month, conversion rate optimization software maker Zarget from Chennai came out of beta and announced US$1.5 million seed funding jointly by Accel and Matrix. ZingHR, Hotelogix, and Crayon Data are startups in other areas of SaaS that Accel has backed. Accel also came out with a joint report with Google, highlighting the huge opportunities opening up for Indian SaaS startups as demand for SaaS rises from global SMBs (small and medium businesses).

See: Why Google and Accel see hyper growth for Indian SaaS startups

Google Capital

Google Capital invested in two of the biggest SaaS success stories from India.

Freshdesk was the first company outside the US to get backing from Google Capital, the growth stage venture capital investment arm of the American search giant. Last year, it doubled down on that investment.

Google Capital is also an investor in healthtech startup Practo which has a SaaS product for doctors, clinics, hospitals, and diagnostic labs. With this, Practo became the highest funded Indian healthtech startup by far, and ventured into Southeast Asia and Brazil.

Google Capital is thus invested in two of the biggest SaaS success stories from India making waves globally.

See: Secrets to scaling up globally from hot Indian startup Freshdesk

Sequoia Capital

Blume Ventures

500 Startups