Months after Clinching the Unicorn Status, Is This SaaS Startup Heading Towards an IPO? According to a media report the year 2019 will be spent in readying the startup for an IPO
By Bhavya Kaushal •
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SaaS is the flavor of the year. India saw several unicorns this year including BigBasket, Delhivery, Icertis, Dream 11 and Druva emerge as the new big guns of the Indian start-up ecosystem. Recently, reports were rife that Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO of Freshworks, is planning to take his company public. Entrepreneur India reported that Indian SaaS unicorn Freshworks might be heading towards an IPO as early as 2021.
While there is yet to get a confirmation for this, it is being reported that Druva could be, apparently, the second SaaS startup that could head for an IPO. According to a media report, Milind Borate, Co-founder and CTO of Druva, has said that 2019 will be spent in preparing the startup for an IPO. The report also said that the listing is likely to happen in USA.
The 11-Year-Old Journey
It took 11 years for Druva to become a unicorn and establish itself as an important SaaS startup in the Indian startup ecosystem. It entered the famed unicorn club after it raised US$130 million in a new round led by Viking Global Investors a few months ago.
Founded in 2008 by Jaspreet Singh, Druva claims to help customers reduce costs by up to 50 per cent by freeing them from unnecessary hardware, capacity planning, and software management. Druva has more than 4,000 enterprise customers including Flex, Hitachi, Live Nation, Marriott, and Pfizer.
Is IPO the Next Goal for Startups?
While IPO seems to be the logical conclusion for most of the companies, there are many startups which have chosen the route otherwise.
Indian unicorns like Swiggy, Zomato, Paytm are yet to go public or they may choose to not go at all. Companies go public primarily to unlock their own valuation. Going public could mean coming under the lense of a watchdog such as Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) or NASDAQ in the US or some other listing body anywhere in the world.
Going public also means that the company's X, Y or Zper cent capital will come from the shares that are sold publicly and it will not have to worry about capital or pressure from investors.
