Indian SaaS Startup Freshwork Raises $1 Billion Via ‘Superstart’ IPO In US

Freshworks became the first Indian SaaS company to go public in the United States, with an IPO expected to raise $1.03 billion (IPO). Our initial public offering was code-named Project Superstar, after Tamil Nadu's most famous movie star, Rajnikanth. Girish Mathrubootham, the founder and CEO of Freshworks, says, "I feel like an Indian athlete who has won a gold medal at the Olympics." Freshworks' stock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Wednesday under the symbol "FRSH." Underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase an additional 2.85 million shares of Class A common stock at the IPO price, less underwriting discounts and commissions, from the San Mateo-based start-up. Freshworks had only just raised the planned range of the offering from $28 to $32 on Monday. Freshworks is one of the first SaaS success stories to emerge from India. Mathrubootham thanked actor Rajnikanth in the initial documents for the company's much-anticipated IPO, which drew a lot of attention. The company's revenue increased to $168.9 million from $110.5 million in the prior year's same period. In 2010, Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy founded Freshdesk, which was rebranded as Freshworks in 2017. Freshworks began in a 700-square-foot warehouse in Chennai and has since disrupted the customer relationship management (CRM) industry. Salesforce, for example, is a competitor.