Premium

Houston’s HighRadius Is Now High Profile With Unicorn Status

To Harvin Moore, there is no story more compelling than the story of a tech company that made it. As the president of Houston Exponential, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering its Texas-based tech firms, Moore is happy to celebrate along with CEO Sashi Narahari as his company becomes the first unicorn sighting of 2020.

Narahari’s treasury management startup, HighRadius, recently reached a $1 billion valuation after closing $125 million in series B funding led by Iconiq Capital in early January. “Today marks an important milestone for HighRadius, and we're thrilled to have Iconiq join us in our vision to modernize the order-to-cash space,” said the CEO. He points to Iconiq’s long term investment strategy and its past successes with top tech firms as a good fit for HighRadius' plans. The capital will be used to grow the fintech's workforce and accelerate expansion into new global markets.

One of Iconiq’s founding partners, Will Griffith, believes there is an excellent potential for the cloud-based company. “As we have seen in many of our portfolio companies… digital transformation is increasingly a CFO priority,” he said. “The HighRadius platform is game-changing for CFOs and finance departments.”

Using AI-powered software, the firm automates payments, receivables, and treasury processes to help customers get paid faster. A company with $10 billion in revenues, for example, may have 10 percent of its invoices outstanding at a time. If collected, that $1 billion could fund growth initiatives instead of languishing in an accounts receivable inbox.

According to HighRadius, the company currently has an estimated 400 clients on its roster, half of which are featured on the Forbes Global 2000 companies list. Narahari also counts industry giants like Adidas, Cargill, Danone, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, and Starbucks as customers.

Founded in 2006, HighRadius operates with headquarters in Houston and Hyderabad. Narahari bootstrapped the company for the first eleven years, which motivated him to run the company lean and profitable. After accepting venture capital funding in 2017, however, the cloud-based firm shifted gears to focus on growth over profitability. The treasury management platform made an estimated $80 million last year and competed with companies like Billtrust, Rimilia, and Cforia.

The SaaS provider is the 25th company with close links to India to become a unicorn. Other one-horned additions hailing from South Asian nation include logistics tech firm, Delhivery, online contract manager Icertis, and data protection platform Druva. According to Crunchbase, HighRadius has raised a total of $175 million in funding over three rounds, including the initial $50 million raised in 2017.

As for Houston Exponential’s Harvin Moore, he was excited for what the fintech’s milestone meant for his city. “HighRadius’ $1 billion valuation demonstrates how…. Houston’s tech ecosystem is growing and maturing,” he said.