SaaS Firm Freshworks Hits $300 Million In Annual Sales, Eyes IPO

San Mateo, California-based Freshworks said Tuesday (Feb. 16) that it has reached $300 million in annual recurring revenue, or subscription revenue, which amounts to a 40 percent growth in 2020 compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, the company has its sights on having an initial public offering (IPO).

In a press release, the company said the “record” 2020 year included new product offerings along with “strategic acquisitions” aimed at accelerating its artificial intelligent (AI) efforts. The company, which provides software as a service (SaaS), competes with Salesforce in such areas as customer relationship management and call center management.

“Freshworks’ impressive growth is not only a testament to the company’s creativity and can-do culture, but also reflects how businesses are looking for new and innovative ways to connect with their customers,” said Sameer Gandhi, partner at Freshworks investor Accel. “Freshworks delivers powerful, easy-to-use cloud-based solutions packaged in a flexible and affordable way, which is even more relevant in 2021 and beyond.”

Girish Mathrubootham, Freshworks founder and CEO, said that in 2020 his company “rose to the challenge and rallied around our customers to help them navigate unknown waters and empower their employees to respond to increasing customer demands.”

The company added that, in 2020, it acquired AnsweriQ, a provider of AI for larger companies. Freshworks said that AnsweriQ “complements Freshworks’ AI engine, ‘Freddy.’ … Freddy can now anticipate customer needs, make conversation-based agent recommendations and perform tasks such as refunds and cancellations with no manual input.”

Freshworks also acquired Flint, a cloud management platform.

A business-to-business software provider, Freshworks pulled in $150 million in venture funding from Accel, along with Sequoia Capital, CapitalG around the end of 2019. The funding propelled Freshworks’ valuation to $3.5 billion.