[Funding alert] US-based WSO2 closes $93M Series E round with $3M investment from Redstart Labs

California, US-headquartered digital transformation solutions provider WSO2 on Wednesday said it completed its Series E growth-stage funding round with the addition of Redstart Labs as an investor.

Backed by Info Edge (India), Redstart Labs invested $3 million in the Series E round, which closed at $93 million, with $90 million coming from lead investor Goldman Sachs Asset Management Private Credit in November 2021. 

With this round, WSO2 has raised $140 million in equity capital to date and is valued at over $600 million. 

The startup will use the capital to fuel its geographical expansion and accelerate growth with a target to go public in the US markets by 2025.

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The company, with sizeable operations in Sri Lanka, was founded in 2005 by Sanjiva Weerawarana. It plans to open an office in India and hire between 50 and 100 people over two years. The company has registered a subsidiary in India and is in the process of hiring a general manager for India operations. 

“As a company of Sri Lankan origin, we wanted to raise some capital from Indian and Sri Lankan investors as part of the recent growth round. While the latter did not come through due to the currency fluctuation, we have a strong presence in India, and we wanted to grow it,” Sanjiva Weerawarana, CEO and Founder, WSO2, told YourStory.

“We are looking at the India operations as a fully functional team, including sales, marketing, R&D, customer success, finance, and others. This is also a way to offer investor and customer comfort, and we are hedging against country risk,” he added.

While it did not disclose details, WSO2 has 35 paying customers in India, including large enterprises and some government agencies. Globally, it has over 800 customers across 90 countries and has a global employee base of nearly 1,000 people. 

WSO2 offers open-source application program interface (API) management software and customer identity and access management (CIAM). It also launched its Platform-as-a-Service solution in April 2022 to speed up customers' go-to-market time. 

The startup has been profitable over the last four years. It registered an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of $63 million for the year 2021 and is targeting $90 million in ARR for 2022. 

Going ahead, the company will also evaluate technology acquisitions valued at less than $10 million. WSO2 acquired Australian company Platformer to extend its Kubernetes capabilities in June 2021. It is likely to consider three to four acquisitions over the next few years.