Customer engagement software maker Freshworks has become the latest company to enter India's unicorn club - a privately held startup company valued at over $1 billion. The company rose a fresh funding of $100 million to become $1.5 billion-valued company.
The current round of funding was led by Sequoia and Accel Partners which will be used to explore the global markets. The capital will also be utilised in its integrated Software-as-a-Service platform.
The company CEO, Girish Mathrubootham, told The Economic Times, "We will continue our worldwide expansion. Being a SaaS company, geography has never been a limiting factor. At this time, we are expanding in the US, Australia and New Zealand, EMEA, APAC and Europe markets."
The company has plans to go for a public listing and before that, it is expecting another round of private funding from Alphabet's CapitalG which also participated in the current round of funding.
Interestingly, the Chennai-headquartered Freshworks is among the first pure-play India-based SaaS companies to have entered the unicorn club.
Last month, Freshworks had reported the annual recurring revenue of $100-million which was supported by growth in the company's flagship customer support product, Freshdesk. Its IT services management product, Freshservice also registered a growth in revenue along with its customer relationship management product, Freshsales.
The company was focussed in hiring right talents and in that direction it hired Suresh Seshadri, former vice-president of finance and treasury at AppDynamics, as the new chief financial officer.
Seshadri had an impeccable record at AppDynamics where he greatly contributed towards preparing its IPO. The company was eventually taken over by Cisco in 2017.
Freshworks has some major clients' viz. Honda, Bridgestone, Hugo Boss, Toshiba, Cisco and global small and medium business (SMB) including 150,000 additional businesses and organisations. The company was involved in nine acquisitions to this date.
Freshworks has more than 150,000 businesses and organisations as clients, including enterprises such as Honda, Bridgestone, Hugo Boss, Toshiba, Cisco and global small and medium business (SMB) customers. The company has also made nine acquisitions to date.
Recently, education Technology start-up BYJU and online insurance company, Policy Bazar also made an entry to this elite club before Swiggy. OYO Rooms and Pine Labs are also expected to cross $1 billion valuation mark when they close their next investment round towards the end of the year.
