SaaS unicorn Freshworks raises $150 million, crosses $3.5 billion valuation
What's the story
SaaS unicorn Freshworks, which provides an integrated suite of cloud-based business/customer engagement tools, has raised $150 million in a Series H round of funding. The investment was led by the company's existing batch of investors - Sequoia Capital, CapitalG, and Accel (the company's first investor). Notably, with this funding, its valuation now stands at around $3.5 billion. Here's all about its fund-raise.
Freshworks
Giants like Honda and Toshiba are Freshworks' clients
Founded in 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy, Freshworks follows a B2B model and provides SaaS (software-as-a-service) based customer engagement solutions. The company claims that its services make it easy for support, sales and marketing professionals to handle their customers' needs. In fact, its cloud-based suite is used by as many as 150,000+ businesses globally, including giants like Honda, Toshiba, Cisco, and Rightmove.
Future plans
How Freshworks will use the funds?
Notably, Freshworks will deploy the funds to expand its footprint and have a worldwide presence. The company will also boost investment in its integrated SaaS platform. As part of this, the start-up has announced a Customer-for-Life Cloud, which unifies data from its several customer engagement products and establishes a common data platform, enabling businesses to quickly respond to customers' queries.
Quote
Customer-for-Life Cloud helps businesses to to sharpen their customer understanding
Explaining about Customer-for-Life Cloud, Girish Mathrubootham, Freshworks's CEO, said, "Customer-for-Life Cloud enables businesses to sharpen their customer understanding to better predict and enable success, displacing dismal legacy SaaS solutions that have over-promised and under-delivered with eye-popping regularity."
Investment
Meanwhile, here's a look at its previous investments
Prior to this investment, Freshworks had raised $100 million in Series G round in July 2019, marking its official entry into the unicorn club. The company is backed by giants like Accel, Tiger Global Management, CapitalG, and Sequoia Capital and has raised $399 million of capital since its inception. Its aggregate valuation now stands at more than $3.5 billion.