Freshworks Raises $100 Mn from Sequoia, Accel and CapitalG To Become India's First Unicorn in Enterprise Software Space

California and Chennai-based Freshworks, a enterprise software product-based startup, has raised fresh $100 million in a series G round of funding co-led by its existing investors Sequoia and Accel Partners, with participation from CapitalG, a late-stage growth fund of Google's parent firm Alphabet.

With is funding, Freshworks is now valued at $1.5 billion.

Earlier in November 2016, the company was valued at $750 million when it had raised $55 million from Sequoia Capital India and Accel Partners. With today's funding round the total funding raised by the company brings to mere $250 million -- to become India's first Unicorn in enterprise software segment.

In addition to funding, Freshworks also announced that it has hired a former AppDynamics VP of finance and treasury Suresh Seshardi, who helped AppDynamics prepare for its IPO. AppDynamics however got acquired by Cisco instead of going IPO.

Additionally, the company also said that it has scaled to $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Interestingly, Freshworks co-founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham indicated that Freshwworks may prepare for going IPO (which might be reason of hiring AppDynamics' Seshardi) and this funding will likely be the last private funding round for the company.

“Freshworks hasn’t started the IPO process but we do feel that we will eventually go public in the U.S.,” he said to TechCrunch.

“With that said, our primary focus right now is on growing the business and investing in our platform. When the timing is right, we’ll make that decision," added Mathrubootham.

Founded out of Chennai in 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy, Freshworks was earlier known as Freshdesk until it re-branded last year to reflect an expansion beyond its core helpdesk product. Now, Freshworks is the parent company behind its several enterprise software products which includes Freshdesk, Freshservice, Freshsales, Freshcaller, Freshteam, Freshchat, and Freshmarketer.

The company's cloud-based suite of SaaS products is widely used by over 150,000 customers around the world including Honda, Bridgestone, Hugo Boss, University of Pennsylvania, Toshiba and Cisco.

With offices in California, London, Berlin, and Sydney, a larger chunk of Freshwork's employees are based out of Chennai, India, where it claims around 1,400 people working on product development.

Moreover, the company has also made a substantial amount of acquisitions in span of just two years. Freshwork's last acquisition was in August last year when it made its ninth acquisition - of Zarget, a leading marketing software startup that provides marketers and designers with a suite of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) tools helping them understand how users interact with their websites.

A month prior to that, it had a href="http://indianweb2/2017/07/20/freshworks-freshdesk-acquires-gurgaon-based-chatbot-startup-joe-hukum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">acquired Gurgaon-based Joe Hukum, a platform that helps businesses build their own chatbots.

Source - Techcrunch | Business Insider

Freshworks Raises $100 Mn from Sequoia, Accel and CapitalG To Become India's First Unicorn in Enterprise Software Space

California and Chennai-based Freshworks, a enterprise software product-based startup, has raised fresh $100 million in a series G round of funding co-led by its existing investors Sequoia and Accel Partners, with participation from CapitalG, a late-stage growth fund of Google's parent firm Alphabet.

With is funding, Freshworks is now valued at $1.5 billion.

Earlier in November 2016, the company was valued at $750 million when it had raised $55 million from Sequoia Capital India and Accel Partners. With today's funding round the total funding raised by the company brings to mere $250 million -- to become India's first Unicorn in enterprise software segment.

In addition to funding, Freshworks also announced that it has hired a former AppDynamics VP of finance and treasury Suresh Seshardi, who helped AppDynamics prepare for its IPO. AppDynamics however got acquired by Cisco instead of going IPO.

Additionally, the company also said that it has scaled to $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Interestingly, Freshworks co-founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham indicated that Freshwworks may prepare for going IPO (which might be reason of hiring AppDynamics' Seshardi) and this funding will likely be the last private funding round for the company.

“Freshworks hasn’t started the IPO process but we do feel that we will eventually go public in the U.S.,” he said to TechCrunch.

“With that said, our primary focus right now is on growing the business and investing in our platform. When the timing is right, we’ll make that decision," added Mathrubootham.

Founded out of Chennai in 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy, Freshworks was earlier known as Freshdesk until it re-branded last year to reflect an expansion beyond its core helpdesk product. Now, Freshworks is the parent company behind its several enterprise software products which includes Freshdesk, Freshservice, Freshsales, Freshcaller, Freshteam, Freshchat, and Freshmarketer.

The company's cloud-based suite of SaaS products is widely used by over 150,000 customers around the world including Honda, Bridgestone, Hugo Boss, University of Pennsylvania, Toshiba and Cisco.

With offices in California, London, Berlin, and Sydney, a larger chunk of Freshwork's employees are based out of Chennai, India, where it claims around 1,400 people working on product development.

Moreover, the company has also made a substantial amount of acquisitions in span of just two years. Freshwork's last acquisition was in August last year when it made its ninth acquisition - of Zarget, a leading marketing software startup that provides marketers and designers with a suite of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) tools helping them understand how users interact with their websites.

A month prior to that, it had a href="https://www.indianweb2.com/2017/07/20/freshworks-freshdesk-acquires-gurgaon-based-chatbot-startup-joe-hukum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">acquired Gurgaon-based Joe Hukum, a platform that helps businesses build their own chatbots.

Source - Techcrunch | Business Insider

Freshworks (Freshdesk) Acquires Gurgaon Based Chatbot Startup Joe Hukum

Chennai-based Freshworks, formerly known as Freshdesk, has acquired Gurgaon-based Joe Hukum, a platform that helps businesses build their own chatbots. The acquisition announcement was made later this evening. The deal amount however has remain undisclosed.

Joe Hukum announced on its website -- "It's been a short and crazy journey for us - from a small basement in Gurgaon to the plush Freshworks offices - a whirlwind of a journey lasting just over a year. We will be building bots on top of existing Freshworks products, enabling workflow automations for demand generation, knowledge management and dynamic in-app self service. We're super proud to be a part of Freshworks and take this vision to their customers around the world."

Founded in July 2015 by ex-Healthkart employees - Arihant Jain, Ajeet Singh Kushwaha and Rahul Agarwal, JoeHukum is a chat-based order taking and fulfilment platform that offers services like local shopping, pick and drop, food, repairs, movie/ event tickets, travel, restaurant reservations, taxi, flowers, cakes, recharge, bill payments and groceries, among others.

As part of the deal, Jain, Kushwaha and Agarwal will be joining Freshworks.

The Joe Hukum team will be responsible for building bots on top of Freshworks’ existing products, enabling workflow automations for demand generation, knowledge management, and dynamic in-app self service.

In December 2015, Joe Hukum had raised seed funding from TracxnLabs besides entrepreneurs like payment firm Citrus' founder Jitendra Gupta and Healthkart's Prashant Tandon.

Joe Hukum is Freshworks' eighth acquisition so far as earlier this year Freshworks has acquired Pipemonk, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup, for an undisclosed amount. Prior to that, the company had acquired Delhi-based Airwoot and Pune-based Framebench in 2016, and Konotor, an in-app customer support platform, in 2015.

In November 2016, Freshworks raised $55 million (Rs 366 crore) in its Series F funding round led by Sequoia Capital India and existing investor Accel Partners.

Missed Your Startup Updates? Here is Weekly News Roundup for You to Stay Tuned

This week was filled with new launches, renaming of startups, government announcements and how can we forget Google joining 1000 club. So in short, this week was a cheerful one for the startup world. And If you have missed any such happening, not to worry. We at IndianWeb2 brings for our reader a weekly dose of startup world.

Here are 10 news from startup ecosystem which you should not have missed:

A New Incubator for AgriTech Starups

Jindal Stainless Ltd. has formed the collaboration with the Japanese company Future Venture Capital Company Ltd. (FVCCL) to launch an incubation centre for agritech startups in India. The announcement was made at the ‘Krisi Unnati’ event organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Bhubaneswar.

The Agritech Incubator Will Select 5–10 Startups for the first batch.

Israel Calling Women-Led Indian Tech Startups

Embassy of Israel in India has officially launched the fifth edition of the Start TLV Competition in India, on Thursday. The competition is for women-led startups (or at least one co-founder should be a female). In order to provide maximum benefits to all its participants, the Embassy of Israel has joined hands with the Indian government's Startup India programme, TiE-NCR, YES Bank & YES Global Institute and CNBC-TV18. Last day to apply to the competition is July 7th, 2017.

Shocking! An Entrepreneur Receives Notice To Cancel His Firm’s Web Identity

A Delhi-based entrepreneur has received an email by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) seeking the cancellation of his company’s domain by the name of “Startupindia.in”. NIXI demands the cancellation of the domain as it is “misleading and is in violation with the Startup India program.” This email was sent by NIXI on a request from Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) as it is creating a problem for the government who is currently using the “startupindia.gov.in” for its Startup India initiative.

Freshdesk Renames Itself To Freshworks

One of India’s most well-funded and Software as a Service (SaaS) startups, Freshdesk has rebranded itself as Freshworks Inc. It is a new umbrella brand that will bring together the company’s growing suite of business software. Following breakout growth of the company’s customer support software, and the introduction of new products for IT Service Management (ITSM), customer relationship management (CRM) and cloud-based call centers, Freshworks products are designed to help companies better engage and communicate with their customers and employees. Precisely six years after launching Freshdesk, Freshworks has became a SaaS powerhouse with five offices in Chennai, San Bruno, London, Sydney and Berlin.

Google Lovers Here Comes The News Of Google Joining $1,000 Share Club

Alphabet, Google’s parent company has joined $1,000, a share club. And this news comes just six days after e-commerce giant Amazon accomplished the same milestone. The California-based company’s Class-A shares crossed the $1,000 per share threshold and climb as much as 1.13 percent to $1,007.4. The tech giant’s shares have surged by a quarter since the start of 2017. Alphabet’s stock success can be attributed largely to its continued dominance in the search engine market with Google search, and the ad revenue that comes along with it.

Launch Of Accelerator Programme In Bengaluru By NetApp

Us-based storage and data management company, NetApp has launched the NetApp Excellerator programme in Bengaluru. It is the company’s first startup nurturing initiative in India which is designed to help startups create world class products and innovative solutions that are market ready.

The applications, for the four-month programme are invited from startups working in the areas related to IOT, cloud, big data and analytics, machine learning, virtualization, data security, storage and data management, and other adjacent areas. Selected startups will receive technology and business mentorship along with the access to markets and investors.

Airtel Business Rolls Out Digital Platform To Serve SMEs & Startups

Bharti Airtel’s B2B ARM, Airtel Business has launched a dedicated digital platform to serve the growing connectivity, communication and collaboration requirements of emerging businesses, including SMEs and Startups. The platform will offer solutions to emerging enterprises to enable ease of business and faster time to market.

Airtel’s new digital platform will offer connectivity solutions to start with and will be integrated with more solutions periodically. Emerging businesses can now discover and buy connectivity plans in just three easy steps which will eliminates multiple layers of traditional processes to offer a fast and convenient way to identify connectivity solutions.

Good News For Indian Subcontinent. India Leaves China Behind In Ease Of Doing Business

According to the 2017 Global Retail Development Index (GRDI), India has emerged at the top position among 30 developing countries in ease of doing business and what came as a surprise was, India leaving China behind.

Yes, the study, which ranks the top 30 developing countries in the world for retail investment worldwide and analyses 25 macroeconomic and retail-specific variables, explained that India’s stupendous performance on the index can be attributed to relaxation of FDI rules introduced by the central government and a consumption boom being witnessed in the South Asian country. The consumption boom is courtesy the country’s growing middle class and rapidly increasing consumer spending.

Now Entering German Market Becomes Ease For Indian Startups, Here’s How

After the news of India leaving China behind in ease of doing business, here comes the another good news for Indian startups. According to a startup exchange pact, which is likely to designed between Govt of India’s Startup India and German Startup Association, Indian startups may soon get easier access to the German market.

A formal agreement between the two countries is being worked upon and is likely to be signed soon. The agreement will be signed between Startup India and the German Startups Association, which has about 650 startups and 50 partners, including corporate entities and venture capital firms, and coordinates with the United States, China, India and Israel.

Acquisition Time. Product Discovery Platform Shoppist Gets Acquire By Roofpik

Real estate property and broker review platform, Roofpik has acquired product discovery platform, Shoppist. The acquisition will strengthen Roofpik core team and bring personalized property recommendations to its users.

The acquisition was driven by Roofpik’s interest in Shoppist’s use of NLP technology, which helps consumers discover the most relevant products based on their user persona. With this technology, Roofpik will be able to validate reviews and generate meaningful analytics from over 5,000 user reviews that are currently live on the platform.

Israel’s OurCrowd Enters Into Strategic Collaboration With India’s Reliance Private Client

Jerusalem-based equity crowdfunding platform, OurCrowd has entered into a strategic collaboration with India’s Reliance Private Client, in which the Indian wealth management firm will be offering its clients the option of investing in the Israeli company’s funds and startup portfolio.

The agreement between Israel’s OurCrowd and India’s Reliance Private Client will aim to build the former’s presence in the Indian subcontinent. Once this aim is substantially conquered, the equity crowdfunding firm hopes that it will be possible for its portfolio companies to export their products to the Indian market.

Israel To Support Women Entrepreneurs, Launches Start TLV Competition In India

The Embassy of Israel has launched the fifth edition of the Start TLV Competition in India. The competition is a platform to support women entrepreneurs in the country and helping them in accelerating the growth of their startups. In order to provide maximum benefits to all its participants, the Embassy of Israel has joined hands with the Indian government’s Startup India programme, TiE-NCR, YES Bank & YES Global Institute and CNBC-TV18. Last day to apply to the competition is July 7, 2017.

The ‘StartupIndia.in’ website which belongs to Startup India Advisory Services Pvt Ltd was incorporated in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in July 2015. The company, which provides advisory services to tech based entrepreneurs has now even put up a disclaimer on the website stating that it has no relation whatsoever with the Indian government’s Startup India initiative.

SaaS Startup Freshdesk Renames Itself as Freshworks

Freshdesk Inc., one of India’s most well-funded and valuable Software as a Service (SaaS) startups, has rebranded itself as Freshworks Inc., a new umbrella brand that will bring together the company’s growing suite of business software. Following breakout growth of the company’s customer support software, and the introduction of new products for IT Service Management (ITSM), customer relationship management (CRM) and cloud-based call centers, Freshworks products are designed to help companies better engage and communicate with their customers and employees.

Freshworks brings together a suite of products for businesses, including:

Freshdesk: a multichannel customer support helpdesk which allows organizations to collaborate and support their customers through email, phone, websites, forums and social media.
Freshservice: a cloud-based service desk and IT Service Management solution to address the growing complexity of teams’ IT support needs through a simple but powerful interface.
Freshsales: a full-featured CRM solution for sales teams handling high-velocity leads.
Freshcaller: A fully functional call center on the cloud

"In 2010, we started Freshdesk as a “fresh helpdesk” with a dream to make a dent in the world of customer support. While Freshdesk continued to grow exponentially, as a company, we moved beyond customer service by offering innovative products in the ITSM and CRM domains. As we expand our vision and build more exciting products, we felt that this was the right time to create a new brand that would allow us to tell our multi-product story better,” said Girish Mathrubootham, CEO & Founder of Freshworks.

Adopted by over 100,000 companies in 145 countries, Freshworks’ mission is exactly this - to help companies better engage and communicate with their customers and employees with refreshing business software that is easy-to-use, feature-packed and accessible to businesses of all sizes. Whether you are a company looking to share customer data and insights across your sales and support teams or quickly onboard and set-up new employees, Freshworks’ integrated software products ensure all teams are all working together in sync. In addition to being fully-featured, all of Freshworks’ products come with free support over email and phone, making them attractive for businesses looking for value against more expensive alternatives.

The stakes for providing a superior customer experience have never been higher. Data shows that 82% of customers stopped doing business with a company due to poor customer experience in 2016. At the same time, providing a seamless experience means looking at the full customer lifecycle, from sales to support. As internal teams become more integrated, these can no longer happen in silos. This is the problem that Freshworks has set out to solve.

Now, precisely six years after launching Freshdesk, Freshworks has become a global, award-winning SaaS powerhouse with five offices in Chennai, San Bruno, London, Sydney and Berlin.

Freshdesk Secures $55M from Sequoia Capital India and Accel Partners

Freshdesk, the leading provider of cloud-based customer engagement software, has announced a $55 Million Series F funding round led by new investor, Sequoia Capital India with the return of existing investor, Accel.

"We have been backing Freshdesk since our seed investment. We are excited about Freshdesk becoming one of the global iconic SaaS companies in the future." said Sameer Gandhi, Partner at Accel.

“We met Freshdesk four years back when it was getting started and have been tracking their progress closely ever since”, said Mohit Bhatnagar, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India. “They have a world-class product vision and Sequoia is delighted to partner with Girish and lead this growth capital round to help scale India's leading SaaS company.”

“We are excited to have Sequoia Capital India as a new investor, the expertise and the excitement they bring will round out our already world-class team,” said Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO of Freshdesk.

Since the last round of funding in April 2015, the company doubled its customer base to over 80,000, opened a new office in Europe and added two new products, Hotline.io, an in-app support and engagement platform for mobile-first businesses; and Freshsales, a CRM solution and sales system for high-velocity sales teams. Freshdesk also debuted in Gartner’s May 2016 Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center1 and was included in The Forrester Wave™: Customer Service Solutions For Midsize Teams for the first time.

Freshdesk’s products empower companies to deliver an exceptional customer experience at every touchpoint. With the addition of Hotline.io and Freshsales to the product portfolio, the new offerings expand the potential reach to mobile-first companies and sales teams. The latest round of funding will be used to accelerate the growth of these products and scaling Freshdesk and Freshservice, as well as the expansion of regional teams across the globe.

Earlier this year, Freshdesk opened its fifth global office in Berlin, Germany and named Arun Mani as Managing Director for Freshdesk Continental Europe. Other than its headquarters in San Bruno, Freshdesk has global offices in London, Sydney and Chennai and will focus on expanding the regional teams to better service its global customer base.

Image : Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO of Freshdesk

Crownit Raises Funding from FreeCharge and FreshDesk Founders

Crownit, the leading local merchant discovery and privileges platform, has secured funding from the founders of some of the leading tech companies in India. FreeCharge founders Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon, Freshdesk founder Girish Mathrubootham and ex-Snapdeal CPO Anand Chandrasekaran have invested undisclosed amounts into Crownit, underlining its rapidly growing stature within the country’s entrepreneurial community as the Meituan of India.

Commenting on the investment, Sameer Grover, Founder & CEO, Crownit, said, “To be recognised and supported by some of the most successful tech entrepreneurs in the country is a major shot in the arm for us. It gives us tremendous confidence to see such belief in our business model and execution approach. We are building India’s largest offline deals company using app-only cost efficient cash-back approach. We are replicating the success of Meituan (China’s largest offline deals company) in India. We will continue to scale using product innovation without the need of large capital. Kunal, Sandeep, Girish and Anand acknowledge Crownit’s product focused approach and we will continue to build on that.”

Kunal Shah, Founder, FreeCharge, added, "Crownit has built a sustainable marketing program for offline merchants. The consumer engagement of Crownit has proven that the product really works and has wide acceptance. At scale across 25 cities and 50k merchants it will work beautifully. Crownit is clearly turning into the Meituan of India. Kudos to the team at Crownit which has helped in building such a comprehensive and economical platform!”

Anand Chandrasekaran , ex-CPO, Snapdeal, said, “Crownit and Sameer have built a product that's both fun and beneficial for consumers, and has day-to-day usage relevance. They have focused on the right metrics and levers to drive habit-forming behaviour. As the O2O market is soon poised to become competitive in India, the winners will be the ones who have built a simple and intuitive customer experience.”

Sandeep Tandon, Founder, FreeCharge, said, “The offline merchants segment is a big opportunity in India. With 95% fragmentation in this domain, it is a tough challenge to build a deals company which is acceptable to both merchants and consumers. I have strong belief in the approach Crownit and Sameer have taken.”

Girish Mathrubootham, Founder, FreshDesk, said, “Crownit has razor sharp focus on customer satisfaction. A company at such early stage with so much passion on customer delight is something which awed me. And clearly the business model is disruptive and solving a big problem which local merchants face in India.”

Targeting the offline merchants’ segment, Crownit has emerged as one of the largest players in the direct consumer discounts and deals category in India.

Crownit is India’s leading O2O platform, connecting consumers with local merchants. Launched in July-2014, Crownit has seen widespread growth across four cities including Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. The company offers its users cashback at local merchants, and customers can redeem their crowns (Cashback) by shopping online, book movie tickets, pay their bills and many more. The retail program helps attract customers for outlet partners by marketing them through the app. Crownit has over 9,00,000 users and has over 15,000 merchants listed on the O2O platform. Crownit targets to have 20 million users and drive $1.2Bn of annual GMV across 25 cities in India by 2019.

Freshdesk Expands Global Presence with New Office in Berlin

Freshdesk, the leading provider of cloud-based customer support software, today announced the opening of a new regional office in Berlin, Germany. Freshdesk has doubled its customer base in just over a year, from 40,000 to 80,000 customers, with nearly a third of the business coming from Europe. Adding to their existing UK office, the new Berlin office will enable the company to better support and grow their mid-market and enterprise business in Continental Europe.

The Berlin office will be led by Arun Mani, Managing Director in Continental Europe. Mani joined Freshdesk in early 2016 with the goal of supporting the European market and growing the company’s presence in the region. Mani’s initial focus is on hiring exceptional talent in Berlin, to service customers in Europe and scale the business in the regions.

Prior to joining Freshdesk, Mani built and scaled a global sales team for AppNexus, growing revenue of their core network business by five times in just three years. Mani previously worked at McKinsey & Company and Accenture, managing client relationships and advising C-level executives on growth strategies and sales enablement. He also holds an MBA from INSEAD.

“We understand that customer needs differ from region to region and we’re looking forward to expanding our presence in Europe. Our Berlin location presents an opportunity to provide a higher level of service, increase local awareness and be active members of the local business community,” said Mani. “Our team is already growing quickly and we are looking to make key hires in sales, marketing and project management before the year is over.”

"Berlin is a great choice for a European hub for Freshdesk with the availability of a multi-lingual talent pool and booming startup scene", says Dr. Stefan Franzke, Management Spokesperson of Berlin Partner for Business and Technology. "We are very pleased to welcome a leading global customer support software company to Berlin."

This announcement comes on the heels of several major company milestones. Freshdesk was the only company added to Gartner’s 2016 Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center1 this year. The company also surpassed the 80,000 customer mark, made five key acquisitions to expand product capabilities, and launched the in-app messaging solution, Hotline.io.

Freshdesk Acquires Delhi-Based Airwoot

Chennai-based Freshdesk on Wednesday announced acquisition of Airwoot, marking its 5th acquisition in the last 12 months and 2nd in 2016 for an undisclosed sum. The Delhi-based Airwoot uses machine learning to help brands deliver high-speed customer service on social media.

Post acquisition, Airwoot's seven-member team will join Freshdesk in Chennai.

Founded in 2012 by a team of PhD dropouts - Saurabh Arora, Prabhat Saraswat and Achal Aggarwal, Airwoot had raised investment from Kae Capital in 2013. The company was part of the eighth batch of The Morpheus accelerator. its is ssentially an intelligent customer experience platform which uses natural language processing and machine learning to automatically identify customers who need engagement and help brands reduce response time.

"This acquisition is in line with our pursuit to bring innovative solutions to the market," said Girish Mathrubootham, founder, Freshdesk.

Backed with funding of $94 million through multiple rounds of funding, Mathrubootham's Freshdesk has been on an acquisition spree since last August. "We had no grand plans to acquire companies or spend allocation," said Mathrubootham. "All our buyouts to date are people who were addressing some part of the customer support problem and more importantly, matched the culture fit of Freshdesk," he added.

The first addition came in Aug 2015, when Freshdesk achieved a customer base of 50,000 customers with acquisition of 1CLICK.io which provided a live video conferencing and co-browsing platform. 1CLICK was seed funded by Blume Ventures and Naru Narayanan from The Chennai Angels.

In the case of Frilp acquisition, Mathrutbootham had been mentor to the founders Shyam Anandaraman and Senthil Kanthaswamy. The start-up had raised $500,000 from angel investors in 2014 and were in search for a fresh round when Mathrubootham took them in.

By the end of 2015, VC funds were drying up especially for growth stage startups and Konotor, a mobile first user engagement platform had hit a dead end with raising a fresh round of funds when he approached Mathrubootham for advice. "We were looking at building a smart mobile team within Freshdesk at the time. When I met the Konotor team, I knew I would need 9-12 months to catch up if I had to build the same expertise in house. So I made them an offer," he said.

Freshdesk raises $31 mn from Tiger Global, Accel Partners & Google Capital

FreshDesk, a SaaS ('Software as a Service') & cloud-based customer support software provider is about to get whooping $31 million (Rs.183.55 crore) in series D funding from Tiger Global Management along with previous investor VC firm Accel Partners and Google Capital. Although, Freshdesk is expected to officially announce this news of investment on Thursday, reported NYTimes Dealbook

FreshDesk is headquartered in Chennai, India and California, US and the company was founded in October 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy in Chennai, India. FreshDesk will be the first foreign investment for Google Capital.

In December 2011, six months after its launch, Freshdesk secured $1 Million in Series A funding from VC firm Accel Partners. In second round of funding in 2012 Freshdesk raised $5 million from Tiger Global Management and Accel Partners as repeat investor. In November 2013, Accel Partners and Tiger Global again invested $7 million in Freshdesk as a Series C round of funding.

In January 2014, Freshdesk Inc. launched its new product, Freshservice, a cloud-based IT service desk to allow businesses to support customers by offering help desk ticketing, service-desk automation, asset management, Problem management, issue tracking and insightful analytics across phone, email, web, live chat, social media and other channels.

In December 2011, Freshdesk was accused of being a ripoff of Zendesk by a blogger Ben Kepes and Mikkel Svane (CEO of Zendesk) the entire episode of accusations turned into racism as references was made on country of origin of founder of Freshdesk. In response to this Freshdesk created ripoffornot.org chronicling the entire conversation, and presented a comparison between the two products and inviting users as well as Ben Kepes to try the product.

However it ended up as defaming freshdesk as competitor of Zendesk, as blogger Ben Kepes turned out to be a 'paid blogger' hired by Zoomdesk.

As of now, with coming new round investment Freshdesk has decided not to disclose its valuation and revenue it has generated so far and with Google Capital joining as investor for the startup, will help Freshdesk to access expertise from Google on how scale its business and marketing.