There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come”
If the software has been eating the world, SaaS is now eating software. While pre-covid seems like a different era altogether now, India was already on a path to becoming one of the most important SaaS hubs of the world. With over $2 Billion in combined annual recurring revenue, consisting of 10,000+ companies (including many unicorns), and thousands more created each year, India has been a thriving ecosystem for SaaS companies and founders.
The confluence of great engineering and product talent, the availability of venture capital, the hunger of founders to go global and make a mark, and shared playbooks from successful companies have culminated in a perfect storm for Indian SaaS companies to make a mark globally.
Indian SaaS companies like Freshworks, Zoho, Postman, and Druva have already made their mark all over the world and are poised for titanic growth in the coming years. Innumerable founders in India are hoping to follow the path forged by these SaaS giants, and further carve their own. According to a recent report by Google and Accel, Indian SaaS is on the way to hitting the $10 billion revenue milestone by 2025.
While many individual SaaS companies have been doing very well on their own, one thing that was perhaps a gap was a strong connective tissue that could weave all these companies together and transform the collective from a bunch of companies to a single unified community. SaaSBoomi was started two years ago as our humble attempt to forge that connection.
Today we are taking the next step in our efforts to build the SaaS community in India by launching the inaugural edition of SaaSBoomi Awards
Why are we doing this?
Awards are expected to bring name and fame – SaaSBoomi Awards will deliver those in spades but that is not the most important reason why you should consider participating.
SaaSBoomi Awards is the first awards program in India that is shaped and judged entirely by the community. You will be judged and recognized not by corporate sponsors or VC investors but by your peers in the Indian SaaS community. By folks who have walked in your shoes but have strode to great heights – community members who have taken their companies to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, who have bootstrapped their startups to profitability at scale with hundreds of team members, who have set global standards in deep tech and cutting-edge innovation.
The first SaaSBoomi Awards program is designed to recognize a select set of exemplary startups along a thoughtfully constructed set of categories that will in essence serve as a proxy for the entire Indian SaaS industry. Our aspiration is that in the years to come, the SaaSBoomi Awards will emerge as the exemplar for startup awards in the country and specifically as a badge of honor for Indian SaaS startups. Winning an award here in the first year is all but guaranteed to give you and your startup enduring recognition and respect – all done by the community, for the community.
For SaaSBoomi Awards 2020, we’re inviting applications for the following award categories:
- SaaS startup of the year – For the best SaaS startup of India, which has achieved great heights at a global level and serves as a lighthouse for all other SaaS entrepreneurs in India. This will be selected by the jury members among all the SaaS startups in India.
- Breakout SaaS startup of the year – For startups that have achieved phenomenal traction or recognition in the recent past, whether through a paradigm shift or through focussed execution.
- Bootstrapped SaaS startup of the year – For startups that have scaled without raising any institutional money (over $100K) and only rely on revenue to fund and grow their operations.
- Deep tech startup of the year – For startups that are solving deep technical problems through extensive R&D, which they intend to commercialize or have already commercialized.
- Category creator SaaS startup of the year – For startups solving a completely new pain point for their customers, and having created a category out of that, where other startups now play within that category globally.
- Vertical SaaS startup of the year – For startups that play in a vertical domain and have achieved phenomenal traction within that domain, be it in terms of revenue or customers.
- Moonshot startup of the year – For the most ambitious startup idea, trying to do something that has been done or can be done by very few. Can be an early-stage startup too.
- B2D SaaS startup of the year – For startups building tools, libraries, or systems for developers and selling to a global audience, having received critical acclaim from their users.
So if you’re a SaaS startup or know someone who you think deserves to be recognized, head straight to this link. Applications are open till Dec 25, 2020.
