Bengaluru, Karnataka, India | 6th February 2020: G2, a US based software review platform, provides authentic over one million user reviews to more than 5 million people across the globe to help them find the best software and services for their business. Thousands of software vendors market their products on G2 to reach these buyers.
Since acquiring Indian start-up, Siftery, in 2018, the company has more than doubled its employee headcount in Bengaluru and increased software reviews and traffic in India by 400%. Siftery was built to help companies manage their software spend.
Relaunched in March 2019 as G2 Track, the offering has expanded to help businesses manage all aspects of their software spend from managing contracts to account usage and compliance. Both the Siftery solutions and the team have been fully integrated into G2 and provided the foundation for the G2 operations in Bengaluru.
Addressing the media at its G2 office, Mr. Godard Abel, Co-founder and CEO of G2 said, “When we acquired Siftery, it had about 20 employees in India and we have since more than doubled the employee headcount to 55. We have not only expanded in headcount but also in office space. Our entry into the Indian market through this acquisition has helped us grow our revenue in India by 2X and we intend to grow many folds in India.“
G2 has registered 5 million software buyers coming each month to search for software solutions and even though the US market accounts for over 60% of traffic, India is the fastest-growing region and already accounts for 10% of global traffic. G2 expects its Indian market to double on a yearly basis. Europe accounts for just over 20% of the global users.
Abel recently attended SaaSBooMi in Chennai, which is Asia’s largest Software as a Service (SaaS) conference for SaaS founders. With the favorable market conditions and learnings from first-generation Indian SaaS startups like Zoho, second-generation SaaS startups, like Freshworks, and Chargebee, are poised to replicate and even surpass the success of companies that came before them, remarks Abel.
“All are familiar with TripAdvisor, an online travel company that operates a global platform with user-generated content, price comparison tools, and online reservations for transportation, lodging, travel experiences, and restaurants. Similarly, since startups want to expand overseas, G2 gives them the platform with real-time reviews and helps them grow,” remarks Abel.
Abel said that it is exciting for G2 since startups like Freshworks, a cloud-based helpdesk software, became the third startup company in India to be called a unicorn in the year 2018. “We strongly believe this is the wave is for software product companies in India and they will become emerging global leaders.”
G2 has over 2,000 customers who list their products on G2, including, AWS, IBM, Hubspot, and also Indian based SaaS companies like Zoho, Freshdesk, and Druva, who all use G2 marketplace to sell their products.
In respect to the Initial Public Offering (IPO), Abel says we have deferred it by another 2-3 years mainly because we wish to grow bigger and expand further before announcing our IPO.
When asked about his India Budget 2020 expectations, Abel said, “I would request the local government to spend more to develop the digital and physical infrastructure. This will help us grow here much faster.”
Abel is alumni of Stanford University and founder of several successful startups, including BigMachines which sold to Oracle, and SteelBrick which was acquired by Salesforce. The serial entrepreneur’s third start-up, G2, has already raised $100 million so far.
