ChargeBee, a Chennai-based startup that helps companies manage their billing and subscription needs, is the latest investment for Tiger Global in India.
The startup has closed a $5 million Series B round led by the New York-headquartered investment fund, with participation from previous backer Accel — which put together ChargeBee’s $800,000 Series A round last year.
Founded in 2011, ChargeBee is focused on helping startups, and particularly those in the Saas space, get more from their billing subscriptions. It counts Freshdesk, Kissflow, Soylent and VinylMePlease among its customer base, which includes companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific, ChargeBee CEO and co-founder Krish Subramanian told TechCrunch in an interview.
“Billing is an amazing opportunity for conversation with customers but also a point of friction if not done well. In a subscription-based business model, it becomes crucial to deliver amazing customer experience in billing as much as your product and we focus on delivering this on top of global payment gateways like Stripe & Braintree,” said Subramanian.
ChargeBee is rivaled by Zuora (which today raised $115 million), Recurly and Chargify. It provides both technical support and solutions, alongside consultancy-like services. The latter might include advice on necessary billing and payment-related processes for expanding into new markets, for example.
Subramanian explained that ChargeBee will use the funds to set up satellite offices in the U.S., UK and Australia, although its base in Chennai — where it has 37 staff — will remain its primary location. The startup also plans to “double down” on its engineering team to develop additional value-add services for customers, such as advanced analytics.
ChargeBee is currently processing $100 million in annual transactions for its customers, Subramanian revealed. It plans to scale by focusing on high-growth startups, rather than larger organizations, for a number of reasons — including shorter product adoption cycles, and the fact that growing companies represent growing revenue for third-party service providers like ChargeBee.
Subramanian said that the company would be unlikely to raise new funding for another two years. He added that it could turn a profit “very soon,” but is currently focused on growth.
Tiger Global raised $2.5 billion in fresh funds last year, and India appears to be a primary focus for that new capital. The firm’s most recent investments have included ShopClues, Grofers and News In Shorts. It is a long-term investor in Indian startups, having backed the likes of Flipkart and Uber-rival Ola from an early stage.
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