Icertis's Monish Darda on opportunities, valuation and more
In an interaction with Business Standard's Surajeet Das Gupta, Icertis co-founder Monish Darda tells more about his plans for the SaaS start-up and challenges posed by software bigwigs. Listen in
Surajeet Das Gupta New Delhi
 "Saas industry")
India’s burgeoning startup landscape and its rapid strides in digital adoption are considered key contributors to the growing SaaS adoption in the country
Q1: Software as a service space is booming, especially online players. Obviously, we have the traditional IT Services companies and they are looking at similar markets which you also look at abroad. What are the challenges that you face for the industry and companies like you in this space?
Ans:
>Same clients but challenges are different
>Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is an established category with a value proposition
>Typical challenges are affordability, time-window and chances of failure
>The challenge is getting value out of contract intelligences
Q2: How do you get over these challenges from the clients, when they say it is expensive, should I have it..?
Ans:
>Address affordability, value and execution time for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions
>Clients have very few options in terms of Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)
>Cloud-native software is flexible, fast and affordable to implement than traditional SAP systems
>Customers now look at CLM just like ERP
Q3: What is the market size for this – if you look at globally? What kind of pole position do you have in this? Is it that none of the bigger players in the IT space are conspicuous by their absence? Or, are they also looking at this area and they will come in somewhere?
Ans:
>Eight years ago, Icertis had three competitors – IBM Emptoris, SAP Contracts and Oracle Contracts
>Never lost a request for proposal (RFP) to any of the competitors
>To stay competitive, the best opportunity for IT majors is to partner Icertis in CLM
>There is no function in an enterprise that contracts don’t touch
>Contracts bind a business and its processes together, and help improve commerce
>Global CLM spend ranges between $2 bn to $3 bn, which includes unstructured spends
Q4: Are you looking at a threshold of valuation where you feel comfortable to go public? Today you are a $5 bn company – which makes it one of the largest for a SaaS company in India. So is there any level which you are looking where you will be comfortable and say ok, we have arrived?
Ans:
>After achieving $5 bn valuation, the next milestone to reach is $10 bn valuation
>Icertis aims to reach a $100 bn valuation in the long run
>In order to go public, clarity on why to take the IPO route is important instead of timing the market
>With IPOs, cost of money is better compared to private equity
>Go public for providing liquidity to investors, who may be looking for exits
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First Published: Feb 23 2022 | 8:30 AM IST
