Other investors including Eight Roads Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Dragoneer Investment Group, F-Prime Capital, and Cisco Investments participated in the round.

Around seven-year-old software-as-a-service startup Whatfix, which helps businesses increase user adoption of applications they use, has raised $90 million in a round led by SoftBank’s second vision fund. Others including Eight Roads Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Dragoneer Investment Group, F-Prime Capital, and Cisco Investments participated in the round. The latest round has taken the company’s total fundraising to $139.8 million so far while its valuation has jumped 3x in the past 15 months, the company announced on Tuesday. Whatfix, which is now valued at nearly $600 million, will deploy the capital towards growing its market in the US and apart from global expansion into new markets including the Asia Pacific and Europe. The company would also invest the amount in product innovation focusing on artificial intelligence (AI), enterprise solutions, and providing personalized experiences.

“Whatfix is proud to offer a unified digital adoption experience enabling organizations to extract the full value from their software tools while also empowering employees, customers, and businesses,” said Khadim Batti, CEO and co-founder, Whatfix in a statement. The company claimed that its revenue and headcount has tripled in the past two years. Whatfix is the third Indian startup raising investment from SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. Lenskart and Meesho are the other two Indian startups in the fund’s portfolio.

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“Whatfix makes it easier for companies to use SaaS products, which increases productivity. Whatfix, with its roster of global clients, is well placed to become a DAS leader, and we are excited to be part of their journey,” said Munish Varma, Managing Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers. The company boasts of over 500 global customers comprising more than 100 Fortune 1000 brands including The Netherlands Red Cross, Experian, Sentry Financial Services, Cardinal Health Canada, BMC Software Inc., Bausch & Lomb, etc.

SoftBank had in October last year had doubled down on its artificial intelligence focused second Vision Fund with a $5 billion commitment to the fund which was launched in October 2019 targeting $108 billion size. This was up from $5 billion committed to the fund by the Group and its subsidiaries as of September 30, 2020. According to Gartner, spending on SaaS applications by businesses in India will grow by 20.8 per cent to $1.41 billion and 20.2 per cent to $1.69 billion in 2022. The end-user spending on public cloud services in India will be worth $4.4 billion in 2021, up 31.4 per cent from 2020.

https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/sme/softbank-vision-fund-2-puts-90-million-in-saas-startup-whatfix-sequoia-cisco-others-participate/2267682/