Make it large: Whatfix bets on big firms, helping employees learn new tech

With digital transformation becoming fundamental to all enterprises, the market is ripe for digital adoption platform Whatfix

‘Show, don't tell’ is the common mantra among teachers and writers that asks them to demonstrate lessons/events rather than just narrating them. The same holds true in the case of technology. In an era where technology is evolving faster than ever, companies have to constantly upgrade to newer software and with it comes the challenge of adoption.
 
This is where digital adoption platforms come into play. One such India-based start-up, Whatfix, recently raised Rs 92 crore in the Series-B round led by Eight Roads Ventures. Other players in this field included WalkMe, AppLearn, UserIQ, Appcues and Toonimo.
 
To make money, the company deploys a SaaS model, offering subscription-based software licenses to its customers. "Whatfix is a SaaS-based digital adoption platform and subscriptions are based on the number of users in an enterprise," says Khadim Batti, co-founder of the Bengaluru-based Whatfix.
 
The company focuses on larger enterprises to make money. For start-ups and SMBs (small- and mid-size businesses), it has a free-to-use ‘Whatfix Community’.
 
It counts Cardinal Health Canada, CNA Financial Corporation, BMC Software Inc, Sophos Group, and ManpowerGroup NL among its customers.
 
Batti and co-founder Vara Kumar started Whatfix in 2013. It raised the seed round funding in 2015 from Helion and a Series A round from Helion and Stellaris in 2017.
 

Kadim Batti, co- founder of Whatfix

Opportunities
 
Digital Transformation has become a primary part of the organisational agenda for many enterprises. According to a survey report from Capgemini, the worldwide spent on digital transformation technologies is expected to exceed $2 trillion by 2021.
But for this transformation to be a success, enterprises also need a solid digital adoption strategy. Thus, opening up a huge market potential for digital adoption start-ups.
 
Whatfix estimates the digital adoption market size at $8 billion.
 
Shweta Bhatia, partner at Eight Roads Ventures, says Whatfix's ability to acquire and expand within large enterprise clients is a major positive for the start-up. "Whatfix has shown strong traction in acquiring large enterprise customers globally and these customers have overtime deployed the Whatfix solution across multiple software types and across various business units," says Bhatia.
 

Vara Kumar, co- founder of Whatfix

The road ahead
 
Whatfix is currently experimenting on building a unified employee experience (EX), i.e, across web applications used within the organisation. Bhatti says it will help employees learn the tools/software on the job, improving their productivity and overall effectiveness.
 
The road ahead, though, isn't easy as there are multiple hurdles that need to be crossed.  Bhatti says the biggest challenge is that learning modalities are not yet evolved. "Even today, software adoption is primarily driven by traditional modes of offline learning and delayed support delivery," he says.
 
Eight Road Ventures' Bhatia agrees. “Challenges are largely around the speed of adoption of DAPs,” she says.


Digital adoption platform in nutshell
 
What it means
A digital adoption platform is a software layer integrated on top of another software application or website to guide users through tasks and functions.

Function
It facilitates the adoption of new features that improve onboard functionality for new users of software, website or app. This tool is often used to train new employees for in-house software.

How it works
The platform uses a combination of analytics, automation, and machine learning to perform its functions.


Factbox:

Launch: 2013
Area of Business: Digital adoption tech
Customers: Larger enterprises; for start-ups and SMBs, it has a free-to-use platfiorm
Pipeline: Whatfix is experimenting on building a unified employee experience