Chargebee had made successive acquisitions in the past 18 months — Brightback, numberz and RevLock in the subscription and cash flow management space — which have been turned around for the customer retention suite.
Businesses have been hunkering down on their customer acquisition costs amid fears of a slowing economy in the US and venture capitalists frowning at valuations agreed before and startups agreeing to raising capital at lower valuations. The product helps businesses focus on keeping the customers they already have, at a time when both businesses and consumers are being forced to evaluate everything in their portfolios and make difficult decisions, cofounder and COO Rajaraman Santhanam told ET.
“We all know it’s very difficult now to acquire new customers as opposed to keeping existing customers. Our new products help companies retain their customer base and keep the cash flow going,” he told ET.
Entrepreneurs say business-tobusiness SaaS companies are better placed as compared to consumer-facing Internet companies that have needed to fork out a lot more to acquire customers. In the short term, though, all businesses may have to look at their fundamentals closely, said Siva Rajamani, CEO of commissions automation platform Everstage.
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“Companies will have to re-look at their marketing spends closely in the near term as they wait and watch how American businesses decide on their spending.” However, Indian SaaS entrepreneurs say the bet is still strong on the country’s SaaS ecosystem on its robust fundamentals — high margins and software products that are sold through Internetbased marketing channels.
