India’s startup ecosystem had been going through a rough patch in recent years with the number of new unicorns drying up, but it now seems to be seeing a surge in M&A activities — and some very lucrative exits for founders.
Bootstrapped Delhi-based startup Wingify has been acquired by private equity firm Everstone for $200 million (Rs. 1,700 crore), Techcrunch reports. The deal was finalized this week, but the parties are yet to comment on the development. The deal could represent a windfall for Wingify founder Paras Chopra, who’d never raised external capital for the company since founding it in 2009.
Wingify specializes in creating technology products aimed at optimizing digital experiences. The company is best known for its flagship product, VWO (Visual Website Optimizer), which is a leading platform for A/B testing and conversion optimization. VWO allows companies to test and experiment their features, and observe customer behaviour. It also allows companies to build personalized experiences for specific users by segmenting customer data. VWO has 2,500 customers from across 90 countries, and counts companies like Paytm, SimilarWeb, TED, Agoda, Microsoft and Amazon as its customers.
Wingify has never raised any external capital, but has been profitable since its inception. Its FY24 revenue was $36.4 million (Rs. 300 crore), and it made some handsome profits, netting $7.37 million (Rs. 60 crore) in profit in the same period. As of 2024, it had 429 employees, which was 25 percent more than the previous year.
And the company getting acquired for Rs. 1,700 crore will be a remarkable exit for founder Paras Chopra. Chopra had competed a degree in Biotechnology from Delhi College of Engineering in 2008, but had been dabbling in entrepreneurship for a while before that. While in school, he had started a company named NaramCheez, which developed desktop and web-based software and released them as freeware, and also did software design and development. While in college, he’d founded an NGO named Kroomsa which helped Indian bands promote their music on the web. He’d then briefly worked with Aspiring Minds as an R&D Engineer. In 2009, he founded Wingify, which went on to became his biggest success.
And Chopra wasn’t resting on his laurels. In spite of Wingify bringing in Rs. 60 crore of profit a year, in 2023 he founded Nintee which used AI for helping people build better habits to transform their lives. Nintee found some initial traction, but was shut down a year later. And Chopra has now decided to exit Wingify, giving him one of the biggest paydays in the Indian startup ecosystem for a bootstrapped founder. Just yesterday, D2C brand Minimalist had been acquired by HUL for Rs. 3,200 crore with the founders making Rs. 1,950 crore, and today Wingify has netted a Rs. 1,700 acquisition while having no external investment. It might be competitive to start a startup in India today, but the payoffs of making it big seem to be bigger than ever.