Sramana Mitra: Fantastic. That’s your big hit from the product company. You’ve built about $18 million worth of revenue across these three businesses. I believe you have raised some financing. Can you tell me a bit about the financing history about the company? Rohith Bhat: We raised our first round in 2013 from Kalaari Capital.
Chaitanya and his co-founders bootstrapped an MVP and then went on to raise $35 million in several rounds of funding. The company is now over $10 million in Annual Recurring Revenue. Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind
Sramana Mitra: Both of them were structured as subsidiaries of Robosoft? Rohith Bhat: Yes. Sramana Mitra: You continued Robosoft with the regular format of doing services projects? Rohith Bhat: Yes. Sramana Mitra: What was the revenue level of Robosoft at this point when you launched these two companies?
Sramana Mitra: These were projects that Apple gave you to build these apps? Rohith Bhat: We had customers of our own. We built it for them. Apple gave us the SDK. Sramana Mitra: This was very early. My question is how did you find clients to build products for the Apple App Store? Rohith Bhat:
Sramana Mitra: What kind of revenue levels were you operating at? Rohith Bhat: We were still at a million dollars. Sramana Mitra: You were steady at a million dollars from 1998 to about 2002. Rohith Bhat: In 1998, we were much smaller. By 2002 to 2003, we hit a million dollars in revenue. We were steady
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Rohith started a services company in his hometown – a small town on the west coast of Karnataka, India. Fifteen years later, the company is generating $18 million in revenue and has raised two sizable rounds of VC funding. I found the story exhilarating! Sramana Mitra:
Sramana Mitra: How much money did you raise in 2013? Jason Kassin: Our Series A was $20 million. Sramana Mitra: How many companies did you acquire? Jason Kassin: We acquired two companies. The first one was a company called Jaguar. In between, we acquired a third company, but that was of a slightly different complexion.
Sramana Mitra: After the client from which you identified the business opportunity of turning this into a product, who was your next client? Once you turn it into a product, how long did it take you to start acquiring actual clients? Jason Kassin: I think the number two client was a company in Amsterdam, which