Freshworks raises $100 million from Sequoia and Accel, becomes a unicorn

The company hires Suresh Seshadri as Chief Financial Officer from AppDynamics, who helped it prepare for IPO before it was bought by Cisco in 2017

Freshworks, a leader in customer engagement software, has become a unicorn after raising $100 million in Series G funding. It also hired former AppDynamics vice-president of finance and treasury Suresh Seshadri as chief financial officer (CFO), the company said in a statement. 

This round was co-led by Sequoia and Accel, with participation of CapitalG, Alphabet’s (Google’s) growth equity fund. The money was raised at a post-funding valuation of $1.5 billion, almost double of $700 million valuation it attracted in November 2016, when it raised $55 million in Series F funding. In all, the company has raised $250 million in equity funding so far (see table).

Freshworks provides organisations with SaaS solutions, which facilitate the customer support process. They also help sales and marketing professionals  communicate effectively with customers and collaborate with team members to resolve customer issues. 

More than 150,000 organisations worldwide use Freshworks, including NHS, Honda, Rightmove, Hugo Boss, Citizens Advice, Toshiba and Cisco. The company is headquartered in San Bruno, CA, and has offices in India, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia.

“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 Freshworks Co-founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham. 

“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,” Mathrubootham added.

Mohit Bhatnagar, managing director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors, said, ‘‘Sequoia first backed Freshworks in 2016 and didn't hesitate for a moment to double down on the investment." 

‘‘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 127countries.”

Sameer Gandhi, a partner at Accel, said, “The business software landscape today is teeming with bloated, inflexibleand expensive solutions.”

“Freshworks has built the only customer engagement platform on the market that elegantly meets the needs of a business of any size with software that is modern, intuitive and affordable. We’re confident that the Freshworks approach is the way forward for businesses seeking a better approach.”

Mohit Bhatnagar, the managing director of Sequoia Capital India Advisors, said, "Sequoia first backed Freshworks in 2016 and didn't hesitate for a moment to double down on the investment." 

"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 126 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.”

Suresh Seshadri, CFO, Freshworks

Suresh Seshadri, the company’s new CFO who previously helped prepare AppDynamics for its IPO before it was acquired by Cisco in 2017, said, ‘‘Freshworks has been riding an incredible wave of growth." 
 

“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.”

Since its last funding round, Freshworks has made several technology acquisitions to bolster its product offerings. Several of these technologies were featured in its recently announced cloud bundle, Freshworks 360, which brings together sales, marketing and support applications to provide users with a full, easy-to-use customer engagement experience.

FUND-RAISING HISTORY

Freshworks' post-funding valuation increased to $1.5 billion, marginally up from $1.4 billion when it raised money last time in Nov 2016. It has become the most recent member of the country’s unicorn club.

Date	Funding	Amount	Investors
Dec-11	Series A	$1 million	Accel, Tiger Global
Apr-12	Series B	$5 million	Tiger Global, Accel
Nov-13	Series C	$7 million	Accel, Tiger Global
Jun-14	Series D	$31 million	Tiger Global, Accel, CapitalG
Apr-15	Series E	$50 million	Tiger Global, Accel, Sequoia
Nov-16	Series F	$55 million	Sequoia, Accel, Tiger Global
Jul-18	Series G	$100 million	Sequoia, Accel, CapitalG

Investors in bold led the round; latest round co-led by Accel & Sequoia