Indian engineers have their demand all over the world. Both the quality and quantity of engineers our country produces every year contributes to a massive part in overall development. And, among all fields, the demands of IT people are at peak. With the new start-ups in any sector, engineers are required very much. The story of Freshworks narrates the tale of two Indian engineers and how they established a company. Freshworks is a software company based in the United States. Founded in 2010, the company got into the uniform club in 2018. Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy founded the company in 2010 as Freshdesk.
About the Founders
Girish graduated from high school in 1990. He went to Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology and Research Academy and studied Electrical & Electronics. He graduated in 1996 and then went to the University of Madras for pursuing his MBA.
His first job was in HCL Cisco ODC as technical staff and he worked there for a year. In 2000, he joined eForce Inc as a senior software engineer. He also worked at AdventNet as a product manager. Before co-founding Freshworks, Girish was the Vice President of product management at Zoho Corporation.
Shan studied mechanical engineering from Vellore. He graduated in 2001 and joined Zoho right away. He worked there for nine long years and then co-founded Freshworks with Girish.
Founding a new company
Girish hovered here and there a few times before establishing Freshworks. Before joining HCL he also taught Java and wanted to open a training institute. But, the idea wasn’t productive for a long time because one time he had plenty of students and next to the moment he had to convince people to learn it.
In 2010, after Girish returned from the U.S. he suffered some trouble with a company. The customer service of the company was poor and he got frustrated by it. This is when he realized that a proper helpdesk still has a lot of potentials. So, with his prior knowledge from working at Zoho, Girish decided to build his own company.
But, he needed a co-founder at the same time. This is when he contacted Shan who is a good friend of him. As he agreed instantaneously, the duo started planning for the company. But, both of them were married and had a family. It’s a huge risk to quit your well-paid job when you have to take care of your family. But, they finally went with their guts and made Freshworks a grand success.
The Beginning
Girish didn’t have good exposure to the business world. So, finding big venture capitalists was a hard task. He started landing investors after his blog on the Freshworks start-up story went viral. The blog was such a big hit that customers started signing up before the actual product was ready for launch. Anand Daniel offered Freshworks a helping hand during this time and finally, the company launched its product.
Surprisingly, the company landed its first customer from Australia. And, the following six customers were also from different countries making it an international company from day one. Many customers signed-up just after trying the trial version.
Funding and Acquisition
When the company was founded, it had six team members. With no outside funding, the team spent $160 each month as rent for their new office. Girish didn’t take any salary back then.
In 2011, Freshworks won $40,000 from the Microsoft BizSpark contest. Since it was a new company then, contests like this helped in gaining exposure followed by good funding. In the same year, the company raised one million from Accel Partners. After from Accel, Freshworks also has investors like Tiger Capital and Sequoia Capital.
In 2018, Freshworks raised $150 million in the Series H funding round. The main investors were Sequoia Capital, CapitalG and Accel. This year, the company received the unicorn tag and it became the third Indian company to receive the same in 2018. After the Series H funding, the company’s total valuation became $1.5 billion.
Success
The main products of Freshworks include Freshdesk, Freshcaller, Freshsales, etc. The company has over 250,000 customers to date. Freshworks made a profit of 21 crores in the financial year 2018. It has also acquired companies like Natero and CanvasFlip.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more