Hanit Awal

#SaaSeries2: Freshworks Q2 FY24 Results. Here are the key highlights: - Total customers in Q2 FY24 grew by 4% to 68.8K YOY. - Customers with ARR >USD 5K grew by 14% YOY, accounting for 90% of the ARR. - Customers with ARR > USD 50K grew by 30% YOY, making up 50% of the ARR. In terms of key metrics: - Revenue saw a 20% growth to 174 Mn in Q2 FY24, with the US market contributing 45%. The growth was also driven by acquisition of Device42 signaling the saturation in US market for key offerings. - Net Dollar Retention stands at 106%. - #ACV is at #USD10K, while the gross margin remains high at 85%. - #FCF USD 32.8 Mn in Q2 FY 24 Few observations: 1) The #Enterprise segment is the fastest-growing, maintaining its trend QoQ. 2) The #SMB segment, constituting ~10%, is critical for expansion despite being the least growing segment. Special focus areas include #GenAI solutions like #Freddycopilot and #Freshchat, with a 40% attachment rate, aimed at enhancing #agentproductivity. #SaaS #GenAI #Freshworks #SaaSUnicorn #AIagents #AIAssistants #conversationintelligence #venturecapital #privateequity #investments

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We have case studies of companies scaling after a good amount of slow growth Pintest took 3 years before it started scaling Stripe founders were manually transferring money behind the scenes for an year Airbnb took few months to get their first employee Kunal Shah spent an year researching before starting CRED Sam Altman said their best companies that scaled in Ycombinator came from companies That wanted to solve a smaller problem With a small audience, And some how Ycombinator people convinced These companies to think global When I was working at Truepush, we had 6 months of halo time before we scaled and Became profitable At current company it’s took months to find a winning ad and we could bet on them for a long time after that. —— When you know what things to work on - KPIs - Retention - Your high paying clients - Repetable clients - Channel fit - Positioning to them And working on unit economics. You will have a unstoppable growth. This process doesn’t gurantee success, But it avoids you from big failures. And that’s 90% work done. You just need to get all these right, once. Until then focus on keeping costs low, Generating retention and revenue. When you get that, scale.

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🚨Swiggy IPO gets oversubscribed led by QIB bids Swiggy’s IPO was oversubscribed 1.07 times by the third day, driven largely by QIBs, who oversubscribed their portion 1.52 times. Retail investors subscribed to 97% of their portion, while Non-Institutional Investors (NIIs) made bids for 22% of their allocation. Swiggy's employee quota also saw strong demand, with a subscription rate of 1.38 times. Swiggy raised around Rs 5,085 crore (approx. $605 million) from anchor investors like HDFC, ICICI, SBI, and global players including Fidelity and BlackRock. by Akshita Toshniwal | #SwiggyIPO #IPO #QIB #RetailInvestors #Foodtech Read more 👇 https://lnkd.in/ggm_piMt

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You'll always question if the market is overvalued. And that's okay. Let me explain. I felt this deeply when analyzing the Indian markets recently. The numbers were clear, but doubts lingered. I started to think: - Are investors paying too much? - What does this mean for future growth? - Should I be cautious or optimistic? I wish I could tell every investor; It's a complex picture. I took a deep dive into the data and found some insights. Often, markets are a mix of signals. Not always clear, but often. These are the steps I took to understand the valuation: → I looked at the P/E ratio. The SENSEX's P/E ratio of 23.88 is high. Investors are paying a premium compared to historical levels. → I checked the Buffett Indicator. India's market cap to GDP ratio is 102.75%. This is above the 10-year average, suggesting overvaluation. → I analyzed foreign investor activity. In October 2024, foreign investors sold $8 billion in Indian stocks. This was the largest outflow since March 2020. → I reviewed expert opinions. Some experts, like Mark Matthews, express caution. Others point to strong GDP growth as a justification for high valuations. So, while some indicators suggest overvaluation, the economic fundamentals offer a different story. On one hand: - NIFTY trades at ~20x forward earnings vs historical average of ~17x - Small/mid-cap valuations are significantly stretched - FII ownership remains high, risking potential outflows - GDP numbers warrant scrutiny given base effects However: - Corporate earnings growth remains robust (15%+ YoY) - Banking sector NPAs at decadal lows - Domestic retail participation provides valuation support - India's consumption story and demographic dividend remain intact According to me, the key is bottom-up stock selection rather than index-level calls.

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💥 OYO Valuation Decline: What Went Wrong?????💥 OYO's valuation : 2019: $10 billion 🚀 2020-2021: $9 billion 📉 2022: $2.7 billion 😔 2024: $2.4 billion 😓 Why did OYO's valuation drop by 75% from its peak? I recently booked a hotel through OYO at a price of ₹700. However, when I called the hotel, the manager demanded ₹1,000. When I questioned him, he said, "Cancel your booking, or book it offline for ₹800." When I asked why, he explained: "OYO charges 30% + additional fees. So, I need to adjust my price." Here’s a breakdown of how the hotel runs: Revenue from 8 rooms/day: 8 * ₹800 * 30 = ₹192,000 Costs: Building Rent: ₹100,000 🏠 Electricity Bill: ₹35,000 ⚡ Staff (2 people): ₹10,000 each = ₹20,000 👨‍💼👩‍💼 Maintenance: ₹10,000 🛠️ OYO's charge: ₹25,000 💸 That leaves the hotel with only ₹2,000 profit! The manager mentioned, "We charge ₹200-₹300 more than the online booking price, as we can't sustain with OYO's high commissions." 📉 This is the main issue affecting OYO's downfall, especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, where hotels cannot survive under these conditions. 🚧 OYO needs to resolve their own problem!!!. 🧐💭 #OYO #Hospitality #HotelIndustry #BusinessChallenges #StartupStruggles #ValuationDrop

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Meet Ankur Bansal, a Senior Product Consultant at BlueStacks, who is not just a community member but also a 1% Club Commando. He has seen his stock market portfolio rise by 67% in 4 years. In an interview with the team, Ankur shares some simple but interesting insights from his investing journey till now. Here’s his full story - https://lnkd.in/dwCn4z-c #stockmarket #investing #community #financialplanning

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Founders focusing on category-specific Quick-Commerce (QC) should note: when Myntra/Nykaa launched, Flipkart/Amazon weren't operating in those categories. Also, e-commerce players are now venturing into quick commerce. They already know which individuals in which locations order what products and at what frequencies! I see no chance for category-specific QCs. I've noticed many VCs lamenting that 70% of new founders are pitching category-focused QC ventures. These founders seem inspired by broad-QC successes (Zepto/Blinkit/Instamart) and draw parallels to e-commerce, where broad players (Flipkart/Amazon) coexist with category specialists (Myntra/Nykaa). The VCs' concerns are valid, and many founders are missing the crucial point. When Myntra/Nykaa launched, they faced no competition from major e-commerce players. These category specialists captured significant market share before broader players entered. By then, they had built unique user experiences and strong brand recall. This helped them survive and thrive. Today, every broad QC (Zepto/Blinkit/Instamart) is raising crazy capital to expand. It's unlikely they'll leave room for category-focused players to establish themselves. Unless the broad QC players mess it up big time, I fail to see how category-focused QC players will make a dent. Additionally, the entry of established e-commerce players into quick commerce (like Flipkart with Minutes) complicates things. These players have years of data on which pincodes order what products, and at what frequencies. They are aware that you place an order for Vim liquid every month and a laptop every three years. You can also be confident that they will aggressively defend their key categories, such as electronics. New category-focused QC ventures will face significant challenges in competing with them. D2Cs (Mamaearth/Licious/Akshayakalpa) may succeed by targeting specific market segments that value unique attributes (organic, premium, etc.). However, they'll find it difficult to expand beyond their niche. Mass-market capture will remain a broad QC play. Thoughts?

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Highperformr.ai, a marketing SaaS startup floated by former Freshworks executives Ramesh Ravishankar and Srivatsan Venkatesan, has raised $3.5 Mn (INR 29.2 Cr) in a seed funding round 👇 The startup’s first product, Highperformr for Teams, leverages generative AI and LLMs to help B2B businesses maximise their return on investment (ROI) on social media campaigns. The fresh capital will be deployed to further the startup's research and development activity, build the platform's native AI capabilities, and expand its distribution network. To read more in detail, click here: https://lnkd.in/gV8tqWyU #startups #fundraising #growth #saas

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CredFlow founder Kunal Aggarwal achieved a major milestone by securing $3.7 million in pre-Series B funding from Inflexor Ventures. This strategic investment brings CredFlow’s total funding to over $13 million, following $9.2 million raised in earlier rounds. Read about how CredFlow is revolutionizing SME's finances: https://lnkd.in/ebv7N7m3 #CredFlow #Funding #Investment #EntrepreneurshipStudio

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🚨 Making of a billion-dollar exit 💰 Accel has sold shares worth over $300 mn in Freshworks over the last 12 months, according to research done by The Arc The VC firm had not sold any shares during the IPO in 2021. It still holds over 13% stake in the Nasdaq-listed company 👨‍💻 The returns on this will be a multi-bagger for Accel 🤑 Series A entry price - $0.05 a share Current price - $18.44 a share Accel's average price increased as it participated in follow-up rounds. More 👇 #venturecapital #software #saas #freshworks #accel #vc #exits #returns https://lnkd.in/g65TbjGR

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OYO Funding and Valuation Woes •Valuation Drop: Potential plunge from $10 billion to $3 billion in funding talks. •OYO Denies: Company refutes claims, says focused on performance, not valuation. •IPO Halt: Draft prospectus withdrawn due to regulatory hurdles, not valuation. •Revenue Growth: CEO projects revenue to surpass $682 million despite funding issues. •Investor Interest: Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund interested in OYO. •Challenges Remain: Internal conflicts and IPO setbacks indicate operational issues. Diversify your portfolio now: Precize.in

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If you are running a SaaS business out of 🇵🇰 here are some common challenges: - You put in a lot of effort on creating company & revenue goals but don’t look at them once they are created, they keep on changing during a quarter and hence most of them are not achieved.  - Lack of focus on processes - Read about OKRs online. Let’s implement them but found out later it’s creating more work and you are unable to achieve the end result.   - One of your ventures became successful where you are generating $1m in (ARR), let's start another product to create multiple revenue streams.  - Information is spread across multiple tools and the list goes on. Don’t be scared. You are not alone and everyone goes through this interesting phase. Here are a few things we have done in the past 12 months that have worked considerably well for us lately, Alhamdulillah! 1 - We do a weekly meeting every Tuesday at 9:00 p.m where department heads, team leads, ICs from all departments come together to review company progress (revenue, expansion, product & engineering goals, competition etc) and during the meeting we also go over self-inflicted wounds (**** up) list to see how we can overcome them. At the end of each month all department heads showcase what they have done to achieve their goals and what wasn't achieved. That’s a meeting I look forward to the entire week. We have heated conversations in the interest of achieving our goals and making sure we meet our north star. Also, once the quarterly goals are created, we try to stick with our strategy for at least a quarter. 2- Repeatable motion: We try to document and make processes for everything we can. We started with the sales department and achieved great results. 3- We don't use any goal setting method. I believe OKR was created for IBM that had hundreds or thousands of employees.  🇵🇰 is a different market where you need a local flavor. We just set revenue goals and work aggressively towards them. Simplicity is the new sophistication 4- Movement is not progress and you don't need a new product unless your revenue is $10m (ARR). We were working on too many initiatives, a lot of fire fighting and nothing gets completed on time. We painfully shutdown projects that were not contributing to revenue. We are now focused on our main product and things are back on track. 5. We have implemented Zoho Connect and each department is building a knowledge repository of their processes. One of my colleagues said, all CEO's are ass***. You need to work with the one who is less ******. I went from being a cool & calm founder to a war team CEO who cares about his team and holds 1:1 mentorship sessions with the team. At the same time I am mean, constantly challenging the team to get the best out of them and share direct feedback.  Would love to know what you're struggling with in your business. If you are building a SaaS product & need my input send me a DM. 

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Wondered what does it take for an Indian SaaS company to build for the world? It requires fundamentally reimagining the traditional SaaS playbook, from sales strategies to organisational structure. Rohit Kaul from Blume Ventures talks to Aakrit Vaish about his journey at Haptik and gives you a handbook if you are looking to build the same. https://lnkd.in/gr2PtGKm At peercheque, Aakrit Vaish and us would love to hear from you if you are building SaaS in India for India.

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Indian Fintech Startup Multipl Secures $1.5M Funding Multipl, an Indian fintech startup, has raised $1.5M in a funding round led by Blume Ventures and MIXI Global Investments. Founded in 2020, Multipl incentivizes users to invest in mutual funds for future expenses through partnerships with brands like Flipkart, Myntra, and Yatra Online Ltd.. The funds will be used to enhance the platform and introduce new features. With over 500,000 downloads, Multipl aims to double this figure in the next year. This follows a $3M round in May 2022. #Multipl #Fintech #Funding #Investment #StartupNews #EmergingTiger

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✈️ Del >> Blr - Excited to be en route to attend SaaSBoomi AI Bootcamp 2024! Can't wait to connect with 100+ SaaS Founders shaping the future of AI in the next 3 days. Extending my stay in Bangalore post-event. Feel free to reach out if you'd like to meet up for a coffee ☕️ PS: LinkedIn AI wrote this post :) #SaaS #AI

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ZEPIC, Inc., a SaaS-based customer experience firm, has secured $2.1 million (INR 17.5 crore) in pre-seed #capital from Neon Fund and other angel investors who hold prominent positions at Apple, Chargebee, Freshworks, Microsoft, and Zoho. Neon Fund had offered $500K to the round. ZEPIC intends to expand its market presence in the US and other regions and strengthen its AI offerings with the #additional funding. Out-of-the-box connectors and no-code philosophy throughout ZEPIC will allow for rapid integration with existing #customer management tools to present the best possible 360 degree view of the customer. ZEPIC, which was cofounded in 2023 by Sunil Kumar Somarajan Pillai, Bharathi Kannan Ravikumar, Naveen Venkat, and Sreelesh Pillai, assists companies in providing excellent customer experiences across #channels and platforms. Siddhartha Ahluwalia To share your startup story write us on - [email protected] #zepic #neon #startup #funding

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Gururam-based angel investment platform Inflection Point Ventures has announced a full exit from Jaipur-based D2C fashion brand Fashor with a 33% IRR. The firm said it has achieved 3.75X MoM (Money over money) from this exit within 54 months of investing in the startup. Read the full story here: 👇 https://lnkd.in/djhTrmvS #funding #investors #angelinvestors #d2c #fashion #entrepreneur #indianstartupnews

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