Coimbatore tums into Software as- a-service hub

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(As Published by TOI)

Software as-a-service (SaaS) firm Kovai.co, which was once a 10-member team building software in a 1,000sqft office in Coimbatore, moved into a modern 40,000sqft workspace on Avinashi Road spending close to $1.2 million on interiors just before the pandemic.

Saas major Zoho, which has played a key role in putting Chennai on the world Saas map, is also setting up three satellite offices at various locations in Coimbatore.

Chennai’s status as the SaaS capital of the country (and the world) is now percolating to Coimbatore as the product-building culture develops in the industrial city in Western Tamil Nadu. Loyal and quality tech talent, top engineering colleges, a growing community of product founders, and relatively better cost of living, has helped throw the spotlight on the city’s SaaS ecosystem.

The presence of major IT services players such as Cognizant, Bosch and HCL has also been key for the city’s tech focus. Startups building products from scratch in Coimbatore are making a mark globally, and the reverse migration to tier-2 cities due to Covid-19 is enthusing the city’s technologists to turn it into a Saas hub on the lines of Chennai.

“We want to be to Coimbatore what Freshworks and Zoho were to Chennai, and for that we need to build something exciting in Coimbatore so that the strong tech talent does not feel the need to go Bengaluru,” says Saravana Kumar, founder of Kovai.co. The firm has expanded its leadership team with global talent recently, and added around 100 employees last year.

Zoho’s director Rajendran Dandapani says post-Covid, the industrial city of Coimbatore has grand dreams’. “More and more companies are exploring options of setting up local offices to allow employees, who had left metros during the Covid lockdown, to come back to work,” he says. As the pandemic was largely positive for subscription-based businesses, Coimbatore SaaS startups such as Kovai.co, RFPIO and Payoda have reported brisk revenue run rates and customer additions in the past few months.