Freshworks Raises Funds At $1.5-Billion Valuation

Freshworks, a cloud-based business software firm, has become the third Indian unicorn in two months, according to people privy to its latest fundraise.

It raised raised $100 million (about Rs 685 crore) in the fresh round led by existing investors and venture capital firms Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital, the Chennai-based company, formerly known as Freshdesk, said in a statement. Another existing investor CapitalG, the investment arm of Google’s parent firm Alphabet, participated in the fundraise.

The round valued the software-as-a-services firm at around $1.5 billion, the people quoted earlier told BloombergQuint requesting anonymity. Just last month, online insurance seller Policy Bazaar and food delivery app Swiggy had joined the unicorn club.

Freshworks said the fresh capital will be used for its global expansion and investment in its SaaS platform. The latest investment takes its overall fundraise to $250 million.

Founded in October 2010, the company has grown from one customer service software product to a firm generating $100 million in annual recurring revenue, Girish Mathrubootham, co-founder and chief executive of Freshworks, said. “We have built a full SaaS platform where all of our products – like Freshsales, Freshdesk, and Freshservice – work together seamlessly.”

Freshworks said it has more than one lakh clients, including the likes of Honda, Bridgestone, Hugo Boss, University of Pennsylvania, Toshiba and Cisco. It also appointed former AppDynamics executive Suresh Seshadri as its chief financial officer.