Freshworks lists on Nasdaq
Freshworks Saas solutions provider, founded in 2010 in a tiny warehouse in a Chennai suburb, debuted on Wall Street today. It will be listed on Nasdaq under the symbol “FRSH” and aims to raise nearly $1.13bn.
The company has also hiked its IPO price again for the second time in a week. It has now fixed the price of $36/share versus $32-34/share two days ago and $28-32/share last week. It is now seeking a valuation of more than $10 billion - up from the $9bn valuation it was seeking a week back.
It was last valued at $3.5 billion in 2019. It has disclosed in its filings that it may use the IPO net proceeds to acquire complementary businesses, products, services, or technologies.
First Indian SaaS to list on Nasdaq
Freshworks is the poster boy of India's SaaS story. It is the first SaaS company from India to become a tech ‘unicorn’ in 2018. This year it will become the first SaaS firm originally from India to list on the Nasdaq.
Its founder and chief executive Girish Mathrubootham teamed up with Shan Kirshnasamy to start what was then called Freshdesk.
Today it is in the position to compete with leading SaaS firm, Salesforce. The company offers integrated solutions for customer management, including a messaging platform, artificial intelligence-powered chatbots and call centre solutions. It also automates repetitive tasks and manages HR functions like hiring and tracking employee data. The company has more than 52,000 customers and counts marquee names like Accel, Tiger Global and Sequoia as its investors.
