SUMMARY
The Startup Plans To Utilise Funds To Enhance Data Science Capabilities And Expand Overseas Operations
Chennai-based SaaS startup focussed on B2B education and skill training, Disprz, has reportedly raised $2.5 Mn (about INR 16.5 Cr) in a Series-A funding round. The investment was led by IL&FS Private Equity and Kae Capital.
The startup plans to utilise its first significant round of venture capital financing to enhance its data science capabilities and also to expand its overseas markets operations.
As Subramanian Viswanathan, CEO of Disprz believes, “Companies which have a lot of knowledge workers in their payroll and R&D need to be constantly upgraded. We do it with frontline workers who face customers. We train them through the app, on-board, communicate and engage (with them) on our platform.”
Disprz was founded in 2015 by Subramanian Viswanathan, an IIT-Madras Mechanical Engineering graduate; and Kuljit Chadha, an engineer from Mumbai University with an MBA from Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business.
Disprz delivers to the companies educational and training content through an online learning management system (LMS) that combines onboarding, on-demand knowledge delivery, employee engagement and real-time communication.
Providing a similar SaaS platform, we have homegrown companies such as IPintentio, a SaaS-based platform providing practice-centric and career-focussed courses; Skillveri a skilling platform that trains workers for manufacturing and production jobs, among others.
Meanwhile, Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) Ltd, has invested in various sectors such as telecom, city gas distribution, shipyards, retail and media. The financial firm reportedly plans to raise a new infrastructure fund under its private equity business with a target corpus of almost $1 Bn.
On the other hand, Kae Capital, which focusses investing mainly on early-stage startups, recently invested an undisclosed amount to a digital lending platform Loanzen. It has previously invested on fantasy sports platform HalaPlay, food ingredient platform WoTu, property management platform Azuro, among others.
On the most recent investment, Venture Partner of Kae Capital, Shubhankar Bhattacharya said, “Having won our early clients in the US, we now have a clear roadmap to go deeper in the US market.”
India is a growing market for building SaaS products. A report published by Google and Accel Partners predicts that Indian SaaS market is expected to become a $10 Bn revenue industry by 2025.
The report further states that global SaaS industry is set to become a $132 Bn revenue industry by 2020, of which India is likely to contribute 8% of the global SaaS revenue by 2025. In such scenario, it becomes imperative for India-based SaaS platform like Disprz to register an exponential growth in the near future.
