This Chargebee company profile covers the company's valuation, revenue, funding rounds, investors and history. Chargebee works in software, with a focus on subscription billing and revenue management. It was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States. Its latest valuation on record is US$3.5 billion (February 2022). Every figure links to a public source, and anything the company hasn't disclosed is marked as such.
Revenue
Funding history
| Date | Round | Amount | Valuation | Investors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2022 | Growth round | US$250M | US$3.5B | Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India (co-leads) | SiliconANGLE |
Chargebee timeline
Key dates from the sources on this page, oldest first. Metric snapshots are listed after the funding events.
- 2011 — Chargebee is founded in San Francisco by Krish Subramanian (CEO), Rajaraman Santhanam, Thiyagarajan T and Saravanan KP.
- Feb 2022 — Growth round: US$250M, valuing the company at US$3.5B. Investors: Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India (co-leads).
Investors
Overview
Chargebee provides software that helps subscription businesses bill their customers and manage recurring revenue. Companies that sell software, media, memberships or subscription boxes need to handle plans, upgrades, downgrades, trials, discounts, proration, invoices, taxes, failed payments and revenue reporting. Doing this with spreadsheets or homegrown code becomes painful as a business grows. Chargebee automates the full cycle, from checkout to invoicing to collections and revenue recognition, and connects with payment gateways, accounting systems and CRMs.
Chargebee was founded in 2011 in Chennai, India, by Krish Subramanian, Rajaraman Santhanam, Thiyagarajan T and Saravanan KP, and now lists San Francisco as a headquarters while keeping a large team in India. In February 2022 it raised US$250 million co-led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India at a US$3.5 billion valuation, according to SiliconANGLE. That valuation dates from the 2022 software boom and has not been updated by a later priced round we can verify.
Products
- Billing: plans, pricing models, invoicing, taxes and proration for subscription and usage-based pricing.
- Retention: tools to reduce cancellations with targeted offers at the point of churn.
- Receivables: dunning and collections workflows that recover failed payments.
- Revenue recognition: automation of revenue accounting under standards such as ASC 606 and IFRS 15.
- Analytics: subscription metrics such as monthly recurring revenue, churn and lifetime value.
- Integrations: connections to Stripe, Adyen, PayPal and other gateways, plus Salesforce, HubSpot, QuickBooks and NetSuite.
Funding
Chargebee raised a series of rounds from investors including Accel, Tiger Global, Insight Partners, Sequoia Capital India (now Peak XV Partners) and Steadview Capital. In 2021 it became a unicorn, and in February 2022 it announced a US$250 million round co-led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India, valuing it at US$3.5 billion. The company has used capital to acquire complementary businesses, including retention and revenue tools.
Business model
Chargebee charges subscriptions based on the billing volume it handles and the features used. Smaller businesses can start on lower-priced plans, while enterprises pay for advanced features and higher volumes. Unlike payment processors, it does not typically take a percentage of each payment, though some pricing is linked to revenue processed through the platform.
Competition
Chargebee competes with Stripe Billing from Stripe, Zuora, Recurly, Maxio and billing modules in enterprise resource planning systems. Merchant-of-record platforms such as Paddle offer billing combined with payments and tax handling. Newer usage-based billing startups target AI and infrastructure companies. Chargebee's strengths are its focus on subscription complexity and its integrations with many payment gateways.
Chargebee at a glance
Chargebee is a subscription billing and revenue management company founded in Chennai in 2011 by Krish Subramanian and co-founders, now headquartered in San Francisco. It automates billing, collections, retention and revenue recognition for subscription businesses. It raised US$250 million co-led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India at a US$3.5 billion valuation in February 2022.
Timeline
- 2011: founded in Chennai.
- 2014–2019: grows customer base globally, especially among software companies.
- 2021: becomes a unicorn.
- February 2022: raises US$250 million at US$3.5 billion.
- 2023–2026: adds retention, receivables and usage-based billing features.
Why subscription billing is hard
Recurring billing appears simple until a company has thousands of customers on different plans. A customer might upgrade mid-month, add seats, apply a coupon, pay in a different currency, change billing address to a country with different tax rules and then have their card expire. Each event changes what should be invoiced and how revenue is reported. Usage-based pricing, common among AI and cloud companies, adds further complexity, as bills depend on metered consumption. Billing errors frustrate customers and create accounting problems. Specialised software reduces these risks.
Revenue recovery
A meaningful share of subscription cancellations are involuntary: payments fail because cards expire or are declined. Dunning tools automatically retry payments at optimal times, notify customers and update card details, recovering revenue that would otherwise be lost. Retention tools present offers, such as pausing a subscription or a discount, when customers try to cancel. For subscription businesses, small improvements in churn compound into large revenue gains.
India's SaaS story
Chargebee is one of a group of Indian-founded software companies, alongside Freshworks, Zoho and BrowserStack, that sell mainly to customers outside India. These companies combine engineering talent in India with global sales, often from US offices. Their success has encouraged a generation of Indian SaaS founders. Our guide to the largest Indian startups covers the ecosystem.
Who funds Chargebee
Chargebee's investors include Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India (now Peak XV Partners), which co-led its 2022 round, along with Insight Partners, Steadview Capital and Accel.
Who uses Chargebee
Chargebee's customers include software companies, media and publishing businesses, subscription e-commerce brands, education companies and other recurring-revenue businesses worldwide.
Valuation context
Chargebee's US$3.5 billion valuation was set near the peak of software valuations in early 2022. Public software multiples fell sharply afterwards, so the current value may differ. Our guides to the largest private SaaS companies and SaaS valuation multiples provide context.
Risks
- Dated valuation: the last priced round dates from 2022.
- Payment platform competition: Stripe and others bundle billing with payments.
- Usage-based pricing shift: new billing models attract specialised competitors.
- Customer budgets: smaller software companies cut spending in downturns.
Questions for buyers
- Which pricing models, including usage-based, do you need to support?
- Which payment gateways and accounting systems must integrate?
- How does pricing scale with your revenue?
- Can it automate revenue recognition for your auditors?
A software company's billing journey
A startup launches with simple monthly and annual plans, billing through a payment processor's basic tools. As it grows, it adds seat-based pricing, enterprise contracts with custom terms, regional pricing and usage-based add-ons for AI features. Its finance team struggles to reconcile invoices, recognise revenue correctly and chase failed payments. Moving to a billing platform such as Chargebee centralises pricing, automates invoices and taxes, retries failed payments and generates reports for investors and auditors. Sales teams can create quotes that flow directly into billing. The switch requires migration effort, but it can save finance staff time and reduce revenue leakage.
What to watch
Watch for new funding or IPO plans, usage-based billing adoption, acquisitions and competition from payment platforms.
Takeaways
Subscription businesses can automate complex billing and revenue tasks. Founders can see how Indian SaaS companies build global customer bases. Investors should treat the 2022 valuation as dated.
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from the public sources below. Where sources disagreed, we used the company's own announcement or a primary news report. Private-company data changes; check the date beside each figure.
Frequently asked questions
What does Chargebee do?
Chargebee is a software / subscription billing and revenue management company headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States. It was founded in 2011.
What is Chargebee's valuation?
Chargebee was valued at US$3.5 billion as of February 2022, according to SiliconANGLE. Private company valuations are set at funding rounds or share sales and can change significantly between them.
How much revenue does Chargebee make?
Chargebee is a private company and has not publicly disclosed its revenue. Figures on third-party sites are usually modelled estimates rather than numbers reported by the company.
What was Chargebee's latest funding round?
The most recent financing we have verified is a growth round in Feb 2022: US$250M, at a valuation of US$3.5B. Source: SiliconANGLE.
Who are Chargebee's investors?
Investors named in public announcements include Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India (Peak XV Partners), Insight Partners, Steadview Capital and Accel.
Who founded Chargebee?
Chargebee was founded in 2011 by Krish Subramanian (CEO), Rajaraman Santhanam, Thiyagarajan T and Saravanan KP.
Is Chargebee a public company?
No. Chargebee is a private company (private, venture backed), so its shares are not traded on a stock exchange and it isn't required to publish its financial results.
Where is Chargebee headquartered?
Chargebee is headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States.