Zerodha-Backed Rainmatter Invests INR 10 Cr In ERPNext

Zerodha’s fintech fund and incubator Rainmatter has invested INR 10 Cr in open-source enterprise resource planning software ERPNext.

Founded in 2008 by Rushabh Mehta, ERPNext offers various modules for inventory management, payroll, sales and support CRM, ticketing, human resources and employee wellness. It is built on top of the Frappe Python framework that allows one to rapidly customise and build complex business applications and workflows. The company has more than 5,000 customers including Zerodha. ERPNext is offered as a hosted cloud solution for businesses with competitive prices.

“This is a strong signal of the arrival of ERPNext as an alternative to the large, expensive and proprietary ERP products. ERPNext is powerful, scalable and 100% opensource and with the investment, we will continue investing in the product and the community,” said Rushabh Mehta, founder & chief executive officer, ERPNext.

“ERPNext has played a significant role in helping us rapidly build and scale the Zerodha technology stack into the largest stockbroking platform in India,” said Kailash Nadh, chief technology officer, Rainmatter and Zerodha.

Zerodha set up Rainmatter in April 2019 to boost stock market investments by funding entrepreneurs. Through Rainmatter, Zerodha invests between $100k -$1M for a minority stake in startups that are trying to bring more Indians to invest in stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, Bonds, G-Secs, and participate in the economy more directly.

“We are very happy to be able to support ERPNext, the best Free and Open Source (FOSS ) project out of India, and also make this investment into the FOSS ecosystem here…Rushabh Mehta founded ERPNext 10 years ago as a system to help manage his family’s business, and since then, he and his team have turned it into a sophisticated and expansive piece of technology…The team of passionate technologists and FOSS developers are now at a juncture where they have to expand to non-technology arenas such as sales and consulting to cater to the growing list of enterprise, B2B customers,” said Nadh. 

This is Rainmatter’s latest bet on a startup. The incubation platform-cum-fund says it provides capital and workspaces to companies that it backs. Rainmatter led an angel funding in child-focused learning firm QShala and Terra.do Inc., ImStrong, Sensibull and digital learning platform LearnApp.