SaaS firm Capillary raises fresh funds from Warburg Pincus, Sequoia

Capillary Technologies Pvt. Ltd, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider for retail chains, has raised $20 million (Rs 128 crore) from two existing investors - private equity giant Warburg Pincus and global venture capital firm Sequoia Capital.

Bengaluru-headquartered Capillary said in a statement that the money was raised in several tranches over the past year.

"We are a lot closer to profitability and this will help us to run for another 18-24 months," Aneesh Reddy, Capillary's co-founder and chief executive officer, told TechCircle.

He said the firm will look at external investors for the next round of funding, which will include secondaries.
"This [funding] will also take us to $100 million in revenues over the next 3-4 years," Reddy added.

The firm will use the fresh infusion to strengthen its artificial intelligence and machine learning-powered product development catering to Asia and other upcoming emerging markets. Reddy said that the company was also expanding its reach in China, Turkey and Indonesia.

Capillary also plans to invest in its newly-launched consumer goods vertical.

"We grew at 15-17% quarter-on-quarter for most of last year and hope to do that this year too. Since our last funding, our revenue has grown 3.5 times," said Reddy.

In September 2016, venture debt firm InnoVen Capital had provided a loan to Capillary. 

Its last round of equity funding was in 2015, when it secured around Rs 300 crore ($45 million) in a funding round led by Warburg Pincus. Existing investors Sequoia Capital and Norwest Venture Partners had also participated. 

“Since Warburg Pincus' initial investment, Capillary has established a clear leadership position in the market and emerged as a preferred partner for brands and retailers throughout the region,” said Vikram Chogle, principal at Warburg Pincus.

Capillary was founded in August 2008 by IIT Kharagpur alumni Reddy, Krishna Mehra and Ajay Modani. It offers cloud-based software solutions to offline retailers to help them engage with customers through mobile, social and in-store channels. Mehra had left the company in late 2015 to start food marketplace Taro in Silicon Valley.  

Capillary says it has more than 250 clients including Unilever, Walmart, Landmark, Calvin Klein, Gap, Courts, Clarks, Starbucks, Pizza Hut and Puma.

Till date, the firm has raised nearly $85 million in external funding from investors including Warburg Pincus, Sequoia Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and American Express Ventures, among others, according to VCCEdge, the data research platform of News Corp VCCircle.

Capillary had acquired a minority stake in Noida-based customer relationship management services startup Exclusife Technosoft Pvt. Ltd last year and also backed offline-to-online fashion store Fashalot in September.

It had invested in user engagement platform WebEngage - also backed by Google India managing director Rajan Anandan - in early 2016.

In August 2016, Capillary had acquired e-commerce technology solutions and services provider Sellerworx Online Service Pvt. Ltd for an undisclosed amount.

Capillary made a couple of top-level hires last year, appointing former Dell executive Ganesh Lakshminarayanan as chief operating officer and roping in former Yum! Brands executive Sunil Suresh to lead strategy.