Defying Gravity

With its focus on customer onboarding, Rocketlane is not only disrupting India's SaaS ecosystem, but also taking itself to the world

- BY SIDDHANT KONDUSKAR

Fridays in Rocketlane's Chennai office mark not just the end of the week, but also a ritual, where each engineer, senior or new, presents what they have built in the week. The practice is not about presentations, but ownership. “It allows a culture of accountability. It’s our way of setting the bar for what's world-class,” says Vignesh Girishankar, the co-founder and chief product officer.

Launched in 2021, Rocketlane is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that has become a one-stop shop for customer onboarding. Today, the company serves over 600 enterprises globally and has raised $45 million from investors, including Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners India), Nexus Venture Partners and 8VC. While they didn’t divulge numbers, the founders claim revenues have grown 2.5x in 2024—data from Tracxn pegs the company’s India revenues at ₹28.5 crore for FY24, but a lion's share of its business comes from the US.

When Pranay Desai, managing director at Z47 Ventures, met the trio of Rocketlane founders—Srikrishnan Ganesan, Girishankar, and Deepak Bala (chief technology officer), he was not just impressed; he was convinced. Says Desai: “We invest in founders rather than markets. Great founders build great markets and massive companies. This team had a fantastic mix of extreme technical capabilities and product expertise.”

For Desai, it wasn't just the concept that struck him but the founders' courage. "You don't need to win here in India," he adds. "You need to win in the US. To do that, you need to be world-class-create a brand, sell where you are a dark horse and build awareness for a new way of working. That is exactly what Rocketlane has done." More than 80 percent of Rocketlane's customers are from the US.