Khadim Batti, co-founder and chief executive of digital adoption platform Whatfix, has died at 49 years old following a cardiac arrest. According to reports from Economic Times, Inc42, and Business Standard, he died of a heart attack. Batti co-founded Whatfix with Vara Kumar in 2014 and grew it into a global business-to-business (B2B) software company. The company provides in-application user guidance for business software across industries, operating as a digital adoption platform (DAP) that overlays software applications to provide real-time, in-app guidance, training, and analytics for users and employees.
Under Batti's leadership, Whatfix has evolved into a major enterprise software company serving more than 700 businesses worldwide. As reported by Mint in 2025, the company had begun building a sizeable artificial intelligence unit to boost revenue. Batti stated that Whatfix's AI offerings were projected to contribute at least 20% of overall revenue by the end of this year. The company has demonstrated significant growth metrics, serving more than 500 customers, including more than 100 Fortune 1000 customers, and has raised $266 million from marquee investors such as Warburg Pincus, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Dragoneer, Peak XV Partners, Eight Roads, and Cisco Investments. The company employs more than 800 people and maintains offices in the US, UK, Germany, Singapore, and Australia, serving hundreds of clients, including Fortune 500 companies such as Shell, Microsoft, Schneider Electric and UPS Supply Chain Solutions.
Batti graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Mumbai in 1998 and completed a master's degree in information technology from the International Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru, in 2000. According to his LinkedIn profile, after stints at smaller companies, he served as delivery head of Huawei's DPI & BI portfolio within the Chinese company's Central Research Division from 2007 to 2010. In 2010, he launched SearchEnabler, a SaaS-based search-engine optimization platform for small and medium enterprises, which he ran until the end of 2013. Batti was also the Co-founder & CEO at SearchEnabler before joining Whatfix. With more than two decades of experience, Batti worked across software development, product innovation and business leadership before building Whatfix into a prominent enterprise technology company.
Batti's passing was first announced on X (formerly Twitter) by AIBoomi chief executive Avinash Raghava. As reported by Mint, Raghava wrote: "I'm deeply shocked and saddened by the passing of Khadim Batti, Co-founder of Whatfix, earlier today. Khadim has been such an important part of our AIBoomi community and of the larger SaaS and AI ecosystem in India. So many of us have known him over the years, shared rooms and conversations with, learnt from, and deeply respected. His journey with Whatfix inspired so many founders in this community. But beyond everything he built, I will remember Khadim for the person he was. A wonderful friend. A generous mentor. Someone who always made time for the ecosystem and showed up for founders with warmth and sincerity. We have lost someone very special today. My heart goes out to his family, the entire Whatfix team, and everyone who was close to him." Batti was also a member of AI Boomi (Previously SaaS Boomi) and was known for giving back to the startup community by sharing his knowledge and mentoring aspiring talent for over a decade and a half. His death comes after the loss of two other members of India's startup and investment ecosystem in recent months, including Paris Pasricha from Info Edge Ventures in June and Akhilesh Agarwal from Accel in July.
