Excl: Cloud-based billing solutions firm ChargeBee raises $350K from US angels

BubblePath Inc, which operates under the brand ChargeBee and provides cloud-based subscription billing & recurring billing solutions to small & medium enterprises in India and abroad, has secured $350,000 from unnamed angel investors located in the US, a top executive of the company told TechCircle.in.

The Chennai-based startup will use the funding to scale its offerings across new markets and expand its engineering team, according to co-founder and CEO Krish Subramanian. "It has been in beta for a considerable time and we have built a solid framework that is secure and scalable to deliver subscription solutions on the cloud. The additional capital from this funding will be used to get wider marketing reach and expand the engineering team to serve multiple verticals," he said.

Set up in May 2011 by the foursome – Subramanian (CEO), Saravanan KP (CTO), Rajaraman Santhanam (product manager) and Thiyagarajan T (senior developer) "the company meets the subscription management and recurring billing requirements of companies.

Subramanian holds a BE and has over 10 years' experience of working with enterprise-level customers in the software services industry. Saravanan, Rajaraman and Thiyagarajan are former Zoho employees and bring in years of experience in product development, API design and application developments.

With ChargeBee solutions in place, enterprises can automate online credit card billing, track unpaid invoices and make informed decisions without any hassle. Additionally, all transactional e-mail messages can be customised and automated in the recurring billing system. ChargeBee also delivers real-time analytics. The company has partnered with 2Checkout, Payment Express, PayPal, QuickPay and Braintree for payment gateways to facilitate its solutions.

According to Subramanian, the startup currently generates around $500 a month in revenues from 11 paid customers, out of which three are from India. "We are a SaaS company and the pricing varies from $49-$249 a month, depending on the number of features a customer requires. Of the 11 paid customers, two are enterprises," he said.

"We focus on serving customers globally and will continue to expand our customer base across SaaS, digital media and retail subscription commerce verticals. With that in mind, we are investing more in support and engineering functions," he explained.

With 10 full-time staff, the company is now looking to expand the team. "However, we have no plans to set up new offices yet, as we mostly offer self-service solutions. Any support request can be handled via e-mail, social media and a few occasional calls," added Subramanian.

According to the ChargeBee co-founder, subscription & recurring billing as a business model is here to stay as India has a huge market for the same. "But it is frustrating when one is unable to deliver global-level services to Indian businesses, mainly due to regulatory challenges concerning online billing of credit cards," he concluded.