Chargebee acquires Trainn, a SaaS startup founded by its alumni, as industry consolidates

Chargebee founders

Chargebee, a software firm that helps companies manage revenues and assists in customer retention, has acquired Trainn, an AI-first customer tracking platform, as the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry consolidates and more companies in the space prepare to operate in an AI-first world.

“Joining hands with Trainn, presents an exciting opportunity for both Chargebee and Trainn in jointly advancing our shared vision of enabling customers in a rapidly changing and innovative – driven market through the use of Al,” Krish Subramanian, co-founder and CEO, Chargebee said in a memo on March 27.

Moneycontrol has seen a copy of the memo.

SaaS is dead, AI is the future…

A SaaS company is acquiring an AI firm at a time when industry experts have cautioned that the industry is evolving and companies need to keep up.

“SaaS in the current form is dead but we need to adopt, evolve, and compete…If you are not adopting AI, throw away your roadmap. It’s time to throw away the old SaaS roadmap," Girish Mathrubootham, founder and chairman of Freshworks, one of the largest SaaS companies in the world, had said at an industry event earlier this week.

As part of the acquisition, Train’s 200 customers will now become customers of Chargebee, Subramanian’s memo said. “I am excited about the unlock that Trainn brings in terms of the deep focus on building and accelerating Al based solutions,” it added.

Chargebee did not reply to Moneycontrol’s queries.

The deal size was not immediately known but it is unlikely to be a sizeable one as Trainn was founded only in 2020 and has raised only a seed round of $700k (around Rs 6 crore) from Speciale Invest and others, as per Tracxn, a private market data provider.

This is Chargebee’s second acquisition in about a month’s time as the Tiger Global-backed company accelerates its AI efforts.

A few weeks ago, Chargebee acquired Inai, a firm that provides software to track and manage payments, to leverage AI in day-to-day offerings.

In a separate memo, responding to why Chargebee needs Inai, CEO Subramanian said the payments landscape is evolving and Chargebee needs to be prepared.

“The payments market is diversifying with new payment methods, embedded payments, digital wallets, buy now and pay later options, real-time payments, and the use of Al to improve customer experience and drive new business. The burden of monitoring all the performance and details is on the customers' infrastructure today,” he said in the mail sent a few weeks ago.

Moneycontrol has seen a copy of the memo. To be sure, while CEO Subramanian said the teams of Trainn and Inai will now be part of Chargebee, he did not shed light on the specifics.

While some top executives of large firms say SaaS is dead and AI will be the future, there are a few others like Manikandan Vembu, the newly appointed CEO of software major Zoho, who have a different opinion.

CEO Vembu, in an interview to Moneycontrol earlier this month, said AI is an integral part, an optimiser, of SaaS, and not an alternative to SaaS because the needs, problems and challenges of enterprises still remain.

While different executives have separate views, there is no doubt that AI is the need of the hour and SaaS firms such as Chargebee are preparing to stay relevant in a constantly evolving landscape.