Trace Deskera's Journey from S$5M to S$36M in Past 4 Years

A successful entrepreneur does not believe in predicting the future, rather he believes in creating a system that can shape that future. Shashank Dixit, the founder of Deskera is the living example of this description. From a university dorm of IIT Kanpur to a S$36 million company today, Shashank’s journey is an inspiration. When he started, little did he know that his company would become one of the leading SaaS players globally.

Today Deskera is a global-provider of cloud-based software solutions for small and mid-sized businesses and was founded by Shashank in his final year along with four other college friends. “The owner of one of the enterprises near my campus wanted me to build a software that could enable his offices at different locations so that he could work on a common set of accounts. What we built then was similar to the cloud-computing of today,” remembers Shashank.

Soon other companies started approaching him for help. In six to eight months, he was coding software for dozens of companies for free. “It was then we realized that most of the existing software providers catered to large enterprises and were beyond the reach of SMEs both in terms of affordability and adaptability because of its complexities. I saw the opportunity for a pay-per- user integrated business software suite that enterprises could quickly deploy and use it from anywhere anytime to enhance their productivity,” adds Shashank.

The SME sector was in dire need of an enterprise software that would help them run their business end-to-end. “We needed a modern and affordable business software that could support our business needs as we continue to grow. With Deskera we now have a solution that supports our business operations with end-to-end accounting, HR and sales. We have been able to reduce the time spent on consolidating of financial reports and get better insights about business performance,” said Yuvonne Chew, Director (Finance & Operations), Esmegen Group.

Initially, there were a lot of hardships that Shashank and his team had to face: sleeping at airports for days at a stretch, walking door-to-door to sell the software to SMEs and hearing a ‘No’ because at that time automation and Cloud technology were widely comprehended as they are today. Despite the initial setbacks, persistence, coupled with hard work and enhancements in the product, finally paid dividends.

With nearly eightfold growth in the past 4 years the growth trajectory of Deskera has been phenomenal. From a revenue of Rs 25 crore in 2013, 70 crore in 2014 to 140 crore in 2015, the company now boasts of 180 crore revenue in 2016. Today, more than 3,000 businesses, with approximately 80,000 users, manage their companies using Deskera products. In the past year alone, Deskera has been honored and recognized on several platforms. It was the winner of the Red Herring 100 Asia 2016 and was featured in the Top 20 Finance Technology Solution Providers by CIO Advisor.

The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California with offices in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. It has a pan India presence across eight major cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Pune.

Buoyed by the ongoing reforms agenda of the government and favourable business environment, Deskera plans to invest around 400 crores in India over next 5 years. While most of the companies in the country are busy laying off, Deskera aims to increase its headcount to 1000 in the next two years to leverage the demographic advantage of the country.

The company has so far raised about Rs.100 crore from various venture capital firms such as Tembusu Partners (Singapore's largest VC), SBI (formerly Softbank Investments - an arm of Softbank), Tikehau Capital and Aris PrimePartners Asset Management.