SaaS startup Hiver secures $4 million in debt funding

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) startup Hiver has raised $4 million (about Rs 29.06 cr at current exchange rates) in debt funding from Mars Growth Capital, a Singapore-based joint debt fund launched by MUFG Bank -- Mitsubishi UFJ Financial’s core banking unit -- and Liquidity Capital. 

According to Niraj Ranjan, the co-founder and CEO of the startup, which operates under Bengaluru and San Jose based GrexIT, the company will deploy the fresh capital to expand sales and marketing efforts and grow its overall customer base.

The target is to double revenues in 2021 and 2022, Ranjan, who started Hiver with Nitesh Nandy in 2011, added.

It comes more than six months after the company rebranded its core product as a dedicated Gmail-based solution that helps teams across the organisation collaborate on shared inboxes such as services@, orders@ and support@ and address customer queries.

Prior to that, Hiver was positioned as a broader shared inbox management solution.

“Last year, we shifted our focus from the shared inbox market to the highly-competitive customer service helpdesk market, and we have seen an overwhelmingly positive response,” Ranjan said. “We see a huge business opportunity with Hiver, in simplifying customer service for businesses by bringing it back to Gmail.”

As of now, the company’s solution is used by more than 1,500 companies to manage customer communication right inside Gmail. This includes the likes of Upwork, AppsFlyer, Flexport, Harvard University, and Kiwi.com. On its website, the company claims that it has increased handling speed of support tickets and email queries by up to 80% for customers.