Elevation Capital leads $15 mn funding in ex-Partner’s AI-SaaS start-up Drivetrain

Former Elevation Capital Partner Alok Goel’s enterprise SaaS start-up Drivetrain, which helps businesses monitor and scale growth, has raised $15 million in fresh funding. The round was led by Elevation Capital, Jungle Ventures, and Venture Highway, along with participation from 25+ angel investors, advisors, founders, and start-up CXOs. These included ex-Googler Amit Singhal, Notion Co-founder Akshay Kothari, Chargebee Co-founder Krish Subramanian, Fareye Co-founder Kushal Nahata, among others. Prior to this, the company had raised an undisclosed seed round last year. 

Founded in April 2021 by Alok Goel, Tarkeshwar Thakur (ex-Freshworks) and Saurav Bhagat (former lead of SaaS investments at Elevation Capital), Drivetrain operates a financial planning, budget-tracking, and growth monitoring platform for tech businesses. It plans to use the funds for new product development, market expansion, and fresh hires. 

Drivetrain Co-founder and CEO Alok Goel calls the platform a “Google Maps for business growth”. It has built an AI-powered language called DTML – Drivetrain Modeling Language – that is capable of expressing nuances of how a particular business operates. At present, the platform integrates with over 200 workplace collaboration software, including Salesforce, Netsuite, Quickbooks, Workday, and Looker, among others, and aids course correction for decision-makers at mid-market enterprises. 

“Many leaders manage their business plans and multimillion-dollar budgets on spreadsheets that are cumbersome and error-prone. Gauging your business health in real-time and applying course corrections is impossible on spreadsheets. Instead, with Drivetrain, you can make better, confident decisions in days, not months,” Goel explained. 

Drivetrain is one among several SaaS start-ups that are leveraging AI to build innovative products for other businesses. The AI-SaaS segment is projected to create $500 billion in market value by 2030, according to a report by Stellaris Venture Partners and IFC (arm of the World Bank).

Deepak Gaur, Partner at Elevation Capital, said, “Today, finance teams spend up to four weeks every quarter tracking key business metrics and generating reports for their stakeholders. You can’t make decisions on such stale data. Drivetrain enables these companies to consolidate their data and get insights in near real-time. This helps them focus more on forward-looking questions during board meetings.”

Bengaluru-based Drivetrain’s AI-led software assists businesses in predicting revenue growth and weeding out business imperfections before it starts affecting their financials. “We have struggled to put together Excel sheets for portfolio companies to predict revenue growth, structure the go-to-market plan, and understand levers that would affect revenue and margin growth. Drivetrain’s scientific approach to scaling business predictably resonated with us,” Priya Mohan, Partner at Venture Highway, stated. 

Also Read: Elevation Capital to write larger early-stage cheques with new fund

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