India has nurtured one of the most prolific Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) ecosystems in the world. Unlike the outsourcing-driven narrative that typically defines the global perception of India’s technology industry, India has seen the rise of product companies that have built and scaled global SaaS brands. 

Some of India’s cities, such as Chennai, Bengaluru, and Mumbai, host SaaS ecosystems that have created companies with hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars in valuation. Multiple such companies have a combined user base of over a billion users and operate across more than 100 countries.

Below is a list of the top 10 SaaS companies in India, along with their founding year, ownership, headquarters location, and areas of operation:

Quick Comparison

Rank	Company	Founded	Owner / Founders	Headquarters	Core Services
1	Zoho Corporation	1996	Sridhar Vembu (Co-founder & CEO); privately held, self-funded	Chennai	Business Software Suite, CRM
2	Freshworks	2010	Founded by Girish Mathrubootham & Shan Krishnasamy; publicly listed (NASDAQ)	Chennai	Customer Engagement, ITSM Software
3	Chargebee	2011	Krish Subramanian, Rajaraman Santhanam, Saravanan KP, Thiyagarajan T	Chennai	Subscription Billing, Revenue Management
4	Postman	2014	Abhinav Asthana, Ankit Sobti, Abhijit Kane	Bengaluru	API Development Platform
5	BrowserStack	2011	Ritesh Arora & Nakul Aggarwal	Mumbai	Cloud-Based Software Testing
6	Druva	2008	Jaspreet Singh, Milind Borate, Ramani Kothandaraman	Pune	Cloud Data Protection & Backup
7	Kissflow	2003 (as OrangeScape)	Suresh Sambandam (Founder & CEO)	Chennai	Workflow Automation, No-Code Platform
8	LeadSquared	2011	Nilesh Patel, Sudhakar Gorti, Prashant Singh	Bengaluru	Sales & Marketing CRM
9	CleverTap	2013 (as WizRocket)	Sunil Thomas, Suresh Kondamudi, Anand Jain	Mumbai	Customer Engagement & Retention
10	WebEngage	2011	Avlesh Singh & Ankit Utreja	Mumbai	Marketing Automation Platform

Zoho Corporation – India’s Most Established Self-Funded SaaS Company

 Image Courtesy: Zoho Corporation Official Website

• Founded: 1996 
• Owner: Sridhar Vembu (Co-founder and CEO); privately held and self-funded, with no external venture capital 
• Headquarters: Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Zoho was founded in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu and his brothers and initially focused on developing networking software called AdventNet. However, the company shifted its focus to building business applications and rebranded as Zoho in 2009. 

Unlike most of its Indian counterparts, Zoho is an intensely private company that has remained self-funded throughout its history, despite its initial potential to raise venture funding.

What Zoho does: Zoho develops and sells a suite of cloud-based business software to organizations of all sizes.

Services offered by Zoho: Customer relationship management software (Zoho CRM), Email and collaboration suite (Zoho Workplace), Finance and accounting packages, HR and people management software, and a low-code application development platform.

Freshworks – The First Indian SaaS To Go Public on NASDAQ

 Image Courtesy: Freshworks Official Website

• Founded: 2010 
• Owner: founded by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy; publicly listed (NASDAQ: FRSH) after its 2021 IPO 
• Headquarters: Chennai, Tamil Nadu (with San Mateo, California)

Freshworks was founded in 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy, who developed an affordable customer support software as a more accessible alternative to enterprise IT helpdesk solutions. Freshworks is also one of India’s first SaaS unicorns and the first Indian-origin SaaS company to go public on NASDAQ.

What Freshworks does: develops and markets customer engagement and IT service management solutions.

Services offered by Freshworks: Customer support software (Freshdesk), IT helpdesk and service management software (Freshservice), Sales CRM (Freshsales), and customer experience and marketing suite.

Chargebee – Software That Helps Businesses Handle Recurring Payments

 Image Courtesy: Chargebee Official Website

• Founded: 2011 
• Owner: Co-founded by Krish Subramanian, Rajaraman Santhanam, Saravanan KP, and Thiyagarajan T 
• Headquarters: Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Chargebee was founded in 2011 to address a challenging niche of subscription management and invoicing software. Chargebee has solved the critical problem of recurring payments for thousands of merchants across more than 200 countries and, through strategic acquisitions, has expanded its reach to revenue operations.

What Chargebee does: provides subscription management and recurring billing software for businesses of all sizes.

Services offered by Chargebee: subscription and invoicing management solutions and revenue operations tools.

Postman – Platform Behind Millions Of API Requests Per Day

 Image Courtesy: WebEngage Official Website

• Founded: 2014 
• Owner: Co-founded by Abhinav Asthana, Ankit Sobti, and Abhijit Kane 
• Headquarters: Bengaluru, Karnataka (with San Francisco, California)

Postman was initially a personal project of Abhinav Asthana, which he open-sourced in 2014 as a simple way for developers to test APIs. Postman has subsequently attracted millions of users and now provides a collaborative API development platform to enterprise developers worldwide.

What Postman does: provides tools for designing, testing, documenting, and hosting APIs

Services offered by Postman: API development software and team collaboration tools to design APIs.

BrowserStack – The Cloud-Based Software Testing Solution

 Image Courtesy: BrowserStack Official Website

• Founded: 2011 
• Owner: Co-founded by Ritesh Arora and Nakul Aggarwal 
• Headquarters: Mumbai, Maharashtra (with Dublin, Ireland)

BrowserStack was founded in 2011 by Ritesh Arora and Nakul Aggarwal, who wanted to address the challenge of ensuring websites and apps function consistently across hundreds of browsers and devices. BrowserStack has become a cloud-based testing infrastructure for thousands of developers and enterprises worldwide.

What BrowserStack does: provides cloud-based services to test websites and mobile apps

Services offered by BrowserStack: cross-browser and cross-device testing services, automated testing solutions, mobile application testing, and visual regression testing.

Druva – A Data Protection Software Company

 Image Courtesy: Druva Official Website

• Founded: 2008 
• Owner: Co-founded by Jaspreet Singh, Milind Borate, and Ramani Kothandaraman
• Headquarters: Pune, Maharashtra (with Santa Clara, California)

Druva was founded in 2008 by three Veritas alumni who wanted to develop innovative data protection software that could operate in the cloud instead of on-premises servers. The name Druva means the Pole Star in the Sanskrit language.

What Druva does: develops cloud data protection and cybersecurity software for enterprises

Services offered by Druva: cloud backup and recovery solutions, ransomware and cyber recovery services, data governance and eDiscovery, and endpoint and SaaS data protection.

Kissflow – Creator of No-Code Business Automation Tools

 Image Courtesy: Kissflow Official Website

• Founded: 2003 (as OrangeScape Technologies) 
• Owner: Suresh Sambandam (Founder and CEO) 
• Headquarters: Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Kissflow traces its roots to 2003 when Suresh Sambandam launched OrangeScape as a platform as a service company. The company subsequently rebranded as Kissflow in 2012, and now provides no-code tools for automating business processes.

What Kissflow does: provides a no-code platform for building business and workflow automation solutions

Services offered by Kissflow: business automation, low-code/no-code platform, procurement and case management, and digital workplace.

LeadSquared – Sales Execution and Marketing Automation For High Growth Industries

 Image Courtesy: LeadSquared Official Website

• Founded: 2011 (as MarketXpander Services; LeadSquared platform launched in 2014) 
• Owner: Co-founded by Nilesh Patel, Sudhakar Gorti, and Prashant Singh 
• Headquarters: Bengaluru, Karnataka

LeadSquared was founded by IIT alumni who recognized the need for a robust sales execution platform in high-growth, lead-centric industries such as education, healthcare, financial services, and real estate. The company now provides marketing automation and sales management solutions.

What LeadSquared does: provides marketing automation and sales execution software for lead-centric industries

Services offered by LeadSquared: LeadSquared marketing automation, lead capture and management, sales CRM and pipeline management, field force and mobile CRM solutions.

CleverTap – Customer Engagement And Retention Technology For Consumer Brands

 Image Courtesy: CleverTap Official Website

• Founded: 2013 (originally as WizRocket) 
• Owner: Co-founded by Sunil Thomas, Suresh Kondamudi, and Anand Jain 
• Headquarters: Mumbai (with global HQ in San Francisco, California)

CleverTap was founded in 2013 by former Network18 colleagues, who launched it as WizRocket before rebranding as CleverTap in 2015. The company provides customer engagement solutions to help brands acquire and retain customers on social media and mobile apps.

What CleverTap does: provides consumer customer engagement and retention solutions

Services offered by CleverTap: user analytics, push and in-app messaging, and omnichannel campaign orchestration.

WebEngage – Marketing Automation And Engagement For Consumer Businesses

 Image Courtesy: WebEngage Official Website

• Founded: 2011 
• Owner: Co-founded by Avlesh Singh and Ankit Utreja 
• Headquarters: Mumbai, Maharashtra

WebEngage was founded by Avlesh Singh and Ankit Utreja. It started as a small user engagement tool for e-commerce companies and has since evolved into a full-stack marketing automation and customer data platform.

What WebEngage does: provides marketing automation and customer engagement software for consumer businesses

Services offered by.WebEngage: multichannel marketing automation, customer data platform, segmentation, analytics, and personalization.

FAQs

Which is the oldest SaaS company on this list? 

Zoho Corporation is the oldest SaaS company on this list, as it was founded in 1996.

Which Indian SaaS companies have been listed on international stock exchanges?

Freshworks is the only Indian SaaS company that has listed on international stock exchanges.

Which of these companies is known for remaining self-funded without external venture capital? 

Zoho Corporation is known for remaining self-funded without external venture capital.

Which company is best known among software developers specifically, rather than business users? 

Postman is best known among software developers, rather than business users.

Which of these companies focus specifically on customer engagement and retention?

CleverTap and WebEngage focus specifically on customer engagement and retention.

Which city has emerged as India’s strongest SaaS hub? 

Chennai has emerged as India’s strongest SaaS hub.

Which company on this list focuses on cloud backup and data protection? 

Druva is the company that focuses on cloud backup and data protection.

What is the difference between SaaS and traditional IT services companies? 

Traditional IT services companies typically provide custom software development and consulting services, whereas SaaS companies develop and sell their own software products as a service.

Which companies on this list started under a different name before rebranding? 

Freshworks, Kissflow, and CleverTap are the companies that started under a different name before rebranding.

Why has India become a strong base for building global SaaS companies? 

India has become a strong base for building global SaaS companies because it has a large talent pool, lower operational costs, and a growing startup ecosystem. This has enabled companies like Zoho, Freshworks, and Postman to build iconic SaaS products that rival their US counterparts.

Conclusion

India’s top SaaS companies represent a diverse range of products and approaches, from Zoho’s disciplined and persevering self-sufficiency to Freshworks’ and Kissflow’s more traditional venture-funded and public market-friendly alternatives. 

Meanwhile, Postman, BrowserStack, Druva, Chargebee, LeadSquared, CleverTap, WebEngage, and others occupy a niche in the SaaS ecosystem, serving specific customers and providing specialized developer tools and services. 

As such, as long as the global adoption of the cloud continues and India’s domestic entrepreneurs continue to look beyond local markets to find customers, these companies are going to continue holding their positions, regardless of what year it is.