BrowserStack Valuation: Reaches $4 Billion with $200M Funding

BrowserStack Achieves Unicorn Status with $200 Million Funding

A new SaaS company originating in India has reached a significant milestone, achieving unicorn status. BrowserStack, a provider of a comprehensive software testing platform, announced on Wednesday that it secured $200 million in a recent funding round.

Series B Funding Details

This financing round values the 10-year-old company at $4 billion. BOND spearheaded the Series B investment, with participation from Insight Partners and existing investor Accel.

Notably, BrowserStack maintained profitability for its first six years without external funding. To date, the company has raised a total of $250 million.

The Growing Need for Robust Testing

Modern companies adopting rapid development cycles often face challenges in dedicating sufficient time to thorough testing procedures. Consider, for example, Google launching a new mobile application.

The technology giant would require testing across a vast number of mobile devices – potentially tens of thousands – to ensure optimal performance.

BrowserStack's Solution

Maintaining a large inventory of physical test devices can be a logistical burden, even for a company like Google. This is where BrowserStack provides a valuable solution.

The platform boasts 15 global data centers and a collection of over 2,000 devices. Nakul Aggarwal, co-founder and CTO of BrowserStack, explained in a TechCrunch interview that they license their services, enabling remote testing of applications and websites on their infrastructure.

Addressing a Fragmented Ecosystem

“Our core objective is to empower engineers in creating exceptional products for their users,” stated Aggarwal. “Developers must guarantee functionality across a diverse range of devices, tablets, televisions, wearables, and platforms.

We aim to alleviate the need for engineers to establish and maintain their own internal device labs.”

A Diverse Customer Base

Google serves as a concrete example of BrowserStack’s utility. Alongside other industry leaders like Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter, Tesco, Ikea, Spotify, Expedia, and Trivago, BrowserStack currently supports over 50,000 customers.

Currently, more than 60% of BrowserStack’s clientele is located in the United States.

Industry Perspective on BrowserStack

“As software increasingly transforms various aspects of life, the demands for speed and quality are escalating,” commented Jay Simons, general partner at BOND. “Testing software across an expanding array of browsers and devices presents a significant and costly challenge for development teams.

BrowserStack simplifies this process and offers a cost-effective solution, providing developers with immediate access to a wide range of browser and device configurations for application testing. This platform is a substantial asset for contemporary web and app developers.”

A History of Bootstrapping and Strategic Growth

BrowserStack first sought external investment in early 2018, after achieving profitability through bootstrapping. Aggarwal noted that prior unsuccessful ventures instilled financial discipline within the founding team.

External funding was only considered once BrowserStack had established market leadership and begun expanding into new territories.

Future Plans and Expansion

BrowserStack’s ambition is to become the foundational testing infrastructure for the internet, and the new funds will facilitate this goal. “We aspire to be the infrastructure where every pull request is tested,” Aggarwal explained.

The company, having recently acquired visual testing platform Percy, is actively exploring further acquisition and acquihire opportunities.

“The acquisition of Percy was merely the beginning,” said Ritesh Arora, co-founder and chief executive of BrowserStack. “We will accelerate the introduction of new products through acquisitions and investments in our Product and Engineering teams. Our vision is to establish ourselves as the testing infrastructure for the internet.”

Joining the Unicorn Club

BrowserStack now joins a growing list of Indian-origin SaaS startups – including Chargebee and Gupshup – that have achieved unicorn status in the current year.