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Let's be honest about the fact that the majority of employees despise the application software they use at work. Business software is cumbersome, costly, difficult to implement, and challenging to use. Days are usually spent attempting to tailor these approaches, and getting it to work also necessitates the use of costly consulting services. Finally, the solution becomes so complicated that companies must recruit full-time staff to oversee the application.
Freshworks agrees that every company needs better technology that is ready to use, simple to build and then use, and leaves a little room for configuration. All of the company's products deliver on this pledge and are backed by world-class customer service. And the best thing is that getting them to work is not expensive.
Know more about Freshworks' success story further in this StartupTalky article.
Freshworks - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | Freshworks |
|---|---|
| Former Name | Freshdesk |
| Headquarters | San Mateo, California, United States |
| Industry | Information Services, Software, Saas |
| Founder | Girish Mathrubootham, Shan Krishnasamy, Vijay Shankar |
| Founded | October 2010 |
| Current CEO | Girish Mathrubootham |
| Website | www.freshworks.com |
Freshworks - Latest News
November 11, 2021 - Freshworks launches Freshstack, a unified product suite, CRM for the customers. The company plans to extend customer support, sales, and marketing teams of the startups with the combination of the Freshmarketer, Freshsales, and Freshdesk products together in the form of a suite.
September 22, 2021 - Freshworks goes public and raises over $1.03 through its IPO round.
September 22, 2021 - Freshworks lists on NASDAQ stock exchange.
About Freshworks and How it Works?
Freshworks - Target Market Audience
Freshworks - Startup Story
Freshworks - Founders And Team
Freshworks - Name, Logo and Tagline
Freshworks - Vision and Mission
Freshworks - Business Model
Freshworks - Revenue and Growth
Freshworks - Funding And Investors
Freshworks - Investments
Freshworks - Acquisitions
Freshworks - Awards and Recognition
Freshworks - Competitors
Freshworks - Challenges Faced
Freshworks - Future Plans
Freshworks - FAQs
About Freshworks and How it Works?
Freshworks is a company that creates a customer service management platform that helps businesses improve the market experience. The company's services facilitate connectivity and enable teams to interact and engage customers and subordinates in order to tackle technological concerns via a set of tools, allowing businesses to connect with employers and fix business-related hardships easily and quickly. It provides businesses of all sizes with innovative SaaS customer engagement solutions.
Freshworks is a software-as-a-service provider of user experience applications for businesses of all sizes. Freshdesk, Freshworks, Freshservice, Freshteam, Freshchat, Freshcaller, and other items are among the company's offerings.
Freshworks, based in San Mateo, California, is part of the Business Intelligence Software Industry. The company has 5000+ employees working in all of its sites and has already witnessed an Annual recurring revenue of more than $300 million on the month of February 2021.
Freshworks - Target Market Audience
Freshworks brings in cutting-edge SaaS customer engagement solutions for startups and other business professionals. It targets businesses of all sizes and all kinds and makes it easy for the operating teams to acquire customers and keep them engaged for life. The company currently operates in India and the US.
Freshworks will continue to acquire new customers and catalyze global brand awareness using a variety of Google resources. Freshworks expects to use Google Translation Services to expand globally as its product range grows.
Freshworks - Startup Story
The founder of the company was an employee of Zoho Corporation. While he was reading an article on Hacker News he found the prices rising to 300% and how the Zendesk users were unhappy about it. He found a comment, where it was written that there's a big opening in the market for someone to come in and take all the Zendesk customers. It was a slap on his face. He knew that opportunity was sitting right in front of him and also he had knowledge about the transition taking place. Then, he thought he should do something in the customer support market delivered as SaaS. The next few weeks turned out to be stressful. He was very excited about his new idea but didn't expose the fact. He spoke to his friend about the matter and he immediately agreed. They both resigned from Zoho and Freshworks came into existence with a team of six people.
Freshworks - Founders And Team
The founders of Freshworks are Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy.
Girish Mathrubootham is the founder and the CEO of Freshworks. Previously, he used to work at Zoho Corporation as a Vice President and Director of Product Management. Besides, Girish also worked as a Product Manager at AdventNet Inc. for a time period of 4 years and 2 months.
Shan Krishnasamy is also the Founder and CTO of the company Freshworks. He too used to work at Zoho Corporation as a technical architect. Shan pursued his Bachelor's degree from TPGIT.
Vijay Shankar is the Co-founder and Director of Solutions Engineering at Freshworks. He is the principal solutions consultant of the company. Vijay had worked for the company right from the initial stages and is experienced in building multiple high-performance support teams from scratch. Vijay has started his career as a Tech Support Engineer at HCL, who then went on to work for Zoho Corporation as a Pre Sales Technical Consultant. Then he went for Millicent Technologies and finally founded Freshworks along with the other 2 founders.
It has been noticed that a large number of employees either hate or they simply cannot work with the application software that they have to use at work. Besides, business software has always been summed up as something cumbersome, expensive, difficult to implement and scale. This made the founders come up with the idea of Freshworks. Freshdesk was formally incorporated in October of 2010 before which founders Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy set out to create a cloud-based client service software that focuses on the consumer.
Freshdesk got rebranded as 'Freshworks' in June 2017 meanwhile evolving its products as well.
Freshworks - Name, Logo and Tagline
Freshworks, as the name suggests refers to a "Fresh" helpdesk that creates a customer service management platform that helps businesses improve the market experience by 'refreshing business software' which is the company tagline.
Freshworks - Vision and Mission
Freshworks' mission statement says, "to help companies better engage and communicate with their customers and employees with refreshing business software that is easy-to-use, feature-packed and accessible to businesses of all sizes."
Freshworks - Business Model
The Freshworks business model depends on doing upmarket sales and its products. The company has got a unique global inside sales model. Business software is expensive and hard to use. People waste hours to get things done. In the end, corporations hire employees to take care of the software. Freshworks provide better software, ready-to-go software which is easier to use. Customers trust the products here and are also backed by decent call support.
Freshworks' emphasis in 2010 was on creating and selling goods to small and medium-sized businesses. Due to the effective and easy solutions that the company came up with, it began to gain prominence within larger corporations through the years.
Freshworks started the transformation and evolution of its services by expressing its broader vision of helping companies win lifetime loyalty. Their unique Indian democratic design principles help them create software that is easy, scalable, inexpensive and encapsulates true craftsmanship, all while enabling businesses to be self-reliant.
Freshworks has a wide range of products for small and medium-scale businesses, entrepreneurs, and business professionals. Freshmarketer, Freshsales, and Freshdesk are some of its core products, which have been bundled together in the form of a unified product suite for startups launched by the company on November 11, 2021. This is a part of the company's startup initiative that was launched in 2019 and has successfully onboarded 2,500 startups so far, out of which 500 of them are paying customers for the company. Freshworks claims that its products are used by 150+ unicorns or around 20% of the unicorns globally.
Freshworks - Revenue and Growth
Freshworks' remarkable growth curve is a reflection of how companies are searching for new and creative ways to engage with their customers, as well as the company's creativity and tenacity.
In mid-February 2021, the company announced it surpassed $300 million in annual recurring revenue, growing the business by 40% year-over-year through difficult financial times because of the pandemic.
By opening offices in Paris, the Netherlands, France, and Utrecht, the company expanded its corporate network. This followed the expansion of the current London office. It also hosted Refresh19 London, which was the city's first meeting, which was attended by about 400 people. Furthermore, the company also expanded its presence in APAC outside of Europe by collaborating with OrangeOne Corporation, a leading tech company in Japan. Freshworks currently has offices in Hyderabad, Melbourne, and other cities. All of these demonstrate how the business is expanding on a wider scale.
Freshworks CEO and Co-Founder, Girish Mathrubootham, post its IPO listing on September 22, 2021, announced that around 500 employees having shares in the company have turned into crorepatis almost overnight, following the listing. Furthermore, around 70 of them are aged under 30 years, "people who have graduated college a few years ago and they fully deserve it for believing in us over the past ten years", as reported by the Freshworks CEO. The company currently boasts of having around 4,300 employees globally.
Freshworks has reported around 46% growth in its revenues, which stood at $96.6 Mn during the third quarter between July-September 2021 for the company. However, the losses of the company also increased to $107.4 Mn for the same quarter, which came on the back of a huge rise in expenses at 305% to $214.63 Mn.
Vibhavari Madki
Freshworks - Funding And Investors
Freshworks has raised a total of $484M in funding over 9 rounds. The company is funded by 6 investors, Steadview Capital and Accel are the most recent investors.
| Date | Transaction Name | Money Raised | Lead Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 1, 2020 | Secondary Market | $85 million | Steadview Capital |
| November 4, 2019 | Series H | $150 million | Accel, CapitalG, Sequoia Capital |
| July 31, 2018 | Series G | $100 million | Accel, Sequoia Capital India |
| November 1, 2016 | Series F | $55 million | Sequoia Capital India |
| April 20, 2015 | Series E | $50 million | Tiger Global Management |
| June 12, 2014 | Series D | $31 million | Tiger Global Management |
| November 21, 2013 | Series C | $7 million | Accel |
| April 26, 2012 | Series B | $5 million | Tiger Global Management |
| December 2, 2011 | Series A | $1 million | Accel |
Freshworks was looking forward to raising up to $912 mn through its IPO round, as per the regulatory filings of the company with the US Securities and Exchange Commission dated September 13, 2021. The company then decided to sell 28.5 million of its Class A common stock between $28 and $32 per share. It was also announced that if the shares of the company would successfully be sold at the higher range, then it would raise around $912 million, thus increasing the valuation of the company to around $9 billion.
Freshworks further confirmed that it would be going public and had already filed the initial public offering in the United States, where the company is presently headquartered. According to the company's filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Freshworks was then looking to raise around $100 million, in an IPO round led by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase. However, that was just a placeholder amount.
The company finally went public on September 22, 2021, and successfully raised over $1.03 bn in its IPO round. Soon after its IPO listing, Freshworks also listed itself on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The price of the shares surged to $36 per share from $32-34 per share or $28-32 per share, which it announced a week ago. The latest IPO has increased the market cap of Freshworks to over $10 billion, which was $9 billion earlier. With a market valuation of $10 bn, Freshworks is currently leading the band of Indian Saas startups, even ahead of Postman valued at $5.6 bn and Browserstack valued at $4 bn. Besides, Freshworks also became the first software startup of Indian origin to be listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
The company had earlier mentioned that it has a large addressable market of around $120 billion ahead, in its regulatory filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission earlier in September. It has also estimated the annual potential market opportunity for its products to be $77 billion.
It might use a portion of the proceeds for acquiring complementary businesses, products, services, and technologies, said Freshworks while it was filing its IPO with SEC.
Freshworks - Investments
Freshworks has made 3 investments till date.
| Date | Organization Name | Round | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 3, 2019 | Fyle | Series A | $4.5M |
| May 24, 2019 | Fyle | Series A | $142.33K |
| Apr 20, 2018 | Fyle | Series A | $1.1M |
Rishabh Rathi
Freshworks - Acquisitions
Freshworks has acquired 13 organizations Flint on Jul 9, 2020 being the most recent.
| Acquiree Name | Date | Amount | About Acquiree |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flint | Jul 9, 2020 | - | Flint is the most advanced and innovative open standards-based automation platform. |
| AnswerIQ | Feb 26, 2020 | - | AnswerIQ is an artificial intelligence service in the customer support space. |
| CanvasFlip | Sep 17, 2019 | - | CanvasFlip is a cloud-based design collaboration and testing platform. |
| Natero | May 21, 2019 | - | Natero harnesses your data to predict, analyze and drive customer behavior. |
| Zarget | Aug 29, 2017 | - | Zarget is a SaaS-based conversion rate optimization company that provides comprehensive solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses. |
| JoeHukum | Jul 20, 2017 | - | JoeHukum Is Your Virtual Personal Assistant. From Flight Booking To Food Delivery |
| Pipemonk (Formerly ZapStitch) | Jan 4, 2017 | - | Pipemonk is a data integration platform that allows companies to synchronize and move data amongst multiple cloud apps quickly and easily |
| Chatimity | Oct 18, 2016 | - | Chatimity is a social chat application helping people discover others based on locality and interests. |
| Airwoot | Apr 13, 2016 | - | Airwoot is a real-time customer support provider enabling brands to provide customer support on social media. |
| Framebench | Feb 22, 2016 | - | Changing how people interact with files on the web & mobile |
Freshworks - Awards and Recognition
Most recent awards and recognition of Freshworks are :-
| Year | Recognition Name |
|---|---|
| 2019 | Supreme Software Award for 2019 |
| 2019 | Expert’s Choice for 2019 |
| 2019 | Great User Experience for 2019 |
| 2020 | Summer Leader 2020 |
| 2020 | Spring Leader 2020 |
| 2020 | Top 10 Fastest Growing Software in Q1 2020 |
| 2020 | Top 10 Most Searched Software in Q1 2020 |
| 2020 | Best call center software for 2020 |
| 2020 | VoIP phone services for 2020 |
Ansh Mehrey
Freshworks - Competitors
The top Freshworks competitors are :
- Zendesk
- Salesforce
- Zoho
- ServiceNow
- Microsoft
- Cherwell
- Oracle
- Coheris
Freshworks - Challenges Faced
Freshworks, being a fast-growing Business to Business, Software as a service company with thousands of B2B and B2C clients, including legacy corporations which are fast-growing billion-dollar businesses, must ensure that its services have minimal downtime, outages, or latency.
“To do this, we need to have visibility into the infrastructure, how it is behaving at any given point of time and how our customers are using our products from an infrastructure standpoint,” says Pradeep Thangavel, Engineering Manager, at Freshworks, "Because Freshworks is integrated on to the customer’s platform, any traffic that comes to the customer’s platform is as good as traffic to the Freshworks platform."
Further, Pradeep explains that how this challenge is difficult because no other Indian B2B SaaS company functions on the same level as Freshworks', which means the company lacks simple access to industry benchmarks or learnings in terms of aligning their infrastructure optimally for daily services.
Freshworks - Future Plans
Freshworks presently assists businesses by providing intelligent customer engagement software which improves their IT operational efficiency.
Employees at Freshworks were able to see the magic in action, which added to the excitement of the trip. All of this entails pursuing bigger deals meanwhile still expanding our existing customers. The company has grown from a small startup producing tools for small businesses to a mid-sized business that caters to larger businesses, pushing them to rethink their marketing and sales strategy.
In 2020, a freshworks spokesperson told, “We are actively focusing on building the business, driving growth in new markets, and strengthening our position in existing markets. We will aim for an IPO if and when a public offering proves opportune for the business.”
Freshworks' expansion has been aided by solid financials, an acquisition-led growth strategy, and the bundling of a suite of services with individual goods.
Freshworks - FAQs
What does Freshworks do?
Freshworks is a company that creates a customer service management platform that helps businesses improve the market experience. The company's services facilitate connectivity and enable teams to interact and engage customers and subordinates in order to tackle technological concerns.
Is Freshworks an Indian company?
Yes, Freshworks is an Indian company founded in Chennai, India but is now headquartered in the US.
How much is Freshworks worth?
The Freshworks valuation is estimated to be more than $3.5 billion.
Who is the founder of Freshworks?
Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy are the founders of Freshworks.
Is Freshworks a product based company?
Yes, Freshworks is a product-based company.
Author: Purbalee Dutta
Source : https://startuptalky.com/freshworks-success-story/
Date : 2021-11-17T07:56:00.000Z