Software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based digital adoption platform Whatfix is looking to break away from being a horizontal application and is exploring more vertical solutions that will cater to specific industries.

"So far, we have been perceived as a horizontal application that is sector agnostic," Khadim Batti, CEO & Co-founder of Whatfix said. "We are now coming up with a few industry-specific solutions that we are looking to launch in the next 8 or 10 months. We're looking to start with solutions for insurance followed by digital banking."

Batti said that the company is trying to work with some partners to identify the specific use cases and requirements they have and tailor Whatfix's product accordingly.

"We will start launching with one in the next few months and then followed by one or two more and then try to replicate across more industries. One typically tends to be a horizontal player and as one matures, one starts becoming more niche or give more specific solutions to industries that can reduce their goal lifetime or on-boarding time and they can start seeing the results quickly."

The pandemic has been a boon for the company as Batti said that the nature of the category that Whatfix operates in has ensured a smooth run. He said Whatfix helps in accelerating the adoption of any software by providing step by step nudges or guidance in the flow of work and helps employees be more productive or understand and use the systems in a much better way.

"It has become a must-have for every CIO or every IT or business department to have a product like us to ensure that their employees are more effective or productive," he said. "Companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on transformation or digitization and they will see ROI only if their employees utilise these processes or digitization more efficiently or effectively. To ensure that, utilising products like Whatfix as a layer of experience or layer of adoption is necessary."

Batti said Whatfix doubled down on existing logos. He said business with existing customers started expanding rapidly and just before the pandemic, the company's ratio of new bookings to existing bookings or existing customers used to contribute around 20%. This grew to around 45% while the remaining 50-55% contribution came in from new logos.

"Q3 onwards, we saw good growth and that kept on increasing. In fact, in two years or less, our revenue and employee count has doubled. In Q3 last year, we started hiring rapidly and I think we would have added around 200 plus people in last five quarters. We have added almost 40 to 50 people in every quarter," he said.

Whatfix will also keep a keen focus on doing early-stage technology acquisitions, like acquiring early tech companies "which are doing good work or have a solid depth in a specific industry," Batti said. So far, Whatfix has acquired two companies - Airim in 2019 and Nittio Learn in 2021. The company also raised $90 million as a part of its Series D round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2 last year.

"We want to invest in a few companies so that our product road map can get faster. We are also incubating some projects internally. We have set up a formal DevOps team and they are scouting the market and have built a relationship with several early-stage companies. We are in the process of talking to a few and are positive that at least one acquisition should arise in a quarter," Batti said.