Freshworks – Company Profile

Freshworks is a leading provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) products and solutions to global enterprises. The company started operations in 2010 from Chennai and has registered significant growth over the years. It is currently headquartered in San Mateo, California, United States and listed on Nasdaq.

It has global operations with offices in countries like UK, Australia, Germany, France, Sweden, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Turkey, UAE and South Africa. With its affordable and easy to use SaaS platforms, Freshworks has been able to build a strong client base of more than 50,000 companies.

History

The original idea for Freshworks came to the founders when they noticed the significant issues businesses were facing with their legacy software. It was usually expensive, clunky, difficult to implement and challenging to customize as per evolving needs.

As a solution to such problems, the founders started working on a cloud-based platform that focused on simplifying things for the end user. Subsequently, Freshdesk was launched in 2010. In 2017, the company was rebranded into Freshworks Inc.

The company makes it easier for organizations to engage with their customers. Products like Freshsales and Freshmarketer help businesses get optimal results from their sales and marketing efforts.

Funding

Freshworks has received investments worth $484 million via nine rounds of funding. Some of the key investors include Steadview Capital, Accel, CapitalG, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management. In 2021, the company launched its IPO to raise funds worth $1.02 billion. The shares debuted at $43.5 per share, an increase of around 21 percent in comparison to the listing price of $36. With the IPO listing, the company’s valuation grew to more than $12 billion.

Acquisitions

To boost business competencies and improve service offerings, Freshworks has made a number of acquisitions over the years. Some of the key acquisitions include Framebench, Airwoot, Chatimity, Pipemonk (Formerly ZapStitch), JoeHukum, Zarget, Natero, CanvasFlip, AnswerIQ and Flint.

Competitors

Freshworks competes with other similar platforms such as Zendesk, Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot, SAP, Oracle and Atlassian.

About the Founders

Freshworks was founded by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy. Girish currently serves as the CEO of the company. It is with his leadership that Freshworks has been able to expand its global footprint. Girish is a leading venture capital investor and also works as an advisor to more than 60 companies. Prior to founding Freshworks, he had worked with companies such as Zoho Corporation, AdventNet, eForce and HCL Cisco ODC.

Co-founder Shan Krishnasamy currently serves as the CTO at Freshdesk. He shares the responsibility of defining and implementing the technology roadmap for the company. Earlier, he was with Zoho.