Freshworks joins unicorn club with its largest funding

CHENNAI: Cloud-based customer engagement software maker Freshworks has become the most recent member of the country’s unicorn club after securing $100 million in a fresh round of funding led by Sequoia capital and Accel Partners with participation from CapitalG, bringing the total amount of capital raised to $250 million, since the company’s inception in 2010.The latest funding round has taken the San Bruno, California and Chennai-based SaaS Company’s valuation to $1.5 billion, according Freshworks. The cash infusion will be used to further expand Freshworks’ worldwide footprint and for continued investments into its integrated SaaS products.“When we started Freshworks in 2010, we were a single product company with a goal of offering better, easier-to-use customer service software than what was in the market. We’ve since scaled our company to $100m in annual recurring revenue and built a full SaaS platform where all of our products - like Freshsales, Freshdesk, and Freshservice - work together seamlessly, without requiring additional integration resources or consultants to make the software simply work,” said Girish Mathrubootham, Co-founder and CEO, Freshworks.The company had recently crossed the $100 million mark in annual recurring revenue scaled by growth in the company’s flagship customer support product Freshdesk and growing revenues clocked by its IT services management product Freshservice and customer relationship management product Freshsales.Sequoia was an early investor in the company, flushing in $55 million into Freshworks in 2016. Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors, Mohit Bhatnagar said "Girish and his team have worked relentlessly to build Freshworks into a leading SaaS company from India – one that is truly global with customers across 127 countries. The investment reinforces the Sequoia principle of being a long term business partner to founders and supporting them at every stage of their company’s growth.”Freshworks has also hired former AppDynamics Vice President of Finance & Treasury, Suresh Seshadri as its Chief Financial Officer. Further, Mathrubootham indicated that the company may not be looking for further funding.“With the addition of Suresh leading our financial management and strategy towards a path of free cash flow breakeven and our latest, and likely last, private funding round in place, we believe we have a unique opportunity to attract customers from around the globe who have been let down by legacy solutions,” said Mathrubootham.Suresh Seshadri, the company’s new CFO, who was behind AppDynamics’ initial public offering in - before it was acquired by Cisco in 2017, said “Coming on board to work with Girish and the rest of the executive team is an incredible opportunity and I am confident that we are well-positioned to reach the next phase of Freshworks’ expansion.”The company’s products are used by more than 150,000 businesses including the NHS,Honda, Rightmove, Hugo Boss, Citizens Advice, Toshiba and Cisco.

from The Economic Times https://ift.tt/2NXnOSA