End Of An Era: Freshworks Founder Girish Mathrubootham Exits

Over a year after he transitioned to the role of executive chairman from CEO, Freshworks founder Girish Mathrubootham is exiting the SaaS major.

In an SEC filing, Freshworks said that Mathrubootham will resign from the role of executive chairman and chairman of its board, effective December 1, to devote his efforts to the VC fund he cofounded, Together Fund. 

“What started in Chennai grew into a global SaaS company on Nasdaq — thanks to an amazing team & customers… Next, I’ll focus on Together Fund & AI startups — working towards India’s dream of becoming a Product Nation,” Mathrubootham said in a post on X.

Together Fund was launched in 2021 with an initial corpus of $85 Mn by Mathrubootham, former Eka Software founder and CEO Manav Garg, former Matrix Partners India executive Shubham Gupta, and former Accel executive Avinash Raghava to back early stage SaaS startups. It counts the likes of Bytebeam, jhana, Capitol AI, Spendflo, among others, in its portfolio.

Meanwhile, Freshworks said that Roxanne Austin will succeed Mathrubootham as the chairperson of the board.

Austin is the president and chief executive of Austin Investment Advisors for more than two decades. She has been a lead independent director on Freshworks’ board since May 2021. She also sits on the board of companies like CrowdStrike, Verizon, and AbbVie currently.

A New Freshworks

Founded in 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shanmugam Krishnasamy, Freshworks went public in September 2021, making its debut in the Nasdaq.

Since its listing, the company has seen a number of changes, including a major reshuffle at the top level and increased focus on AI.

Mathrubootham’s exit comes years after cofounder and the then CTO Krishnasamy stepped away from Freshworks in September 2022. Last year, Freshworks also saw a complete revamp of its top management, including CTO, CPO, chief revenue officer, and its India head.

Amid the changing focus to AI, the SaaS major undertook a restructuring exercise last year, which impacted around 660 employees or 13% of its workforce.

On the financial front, Freshworks trimmed its consolidated net loss by 91.4% to $1.7 Mn in Q2 2025 from $20.2 Mn in the previous year. Revenue jumped 17.5% to $204.7 Mn during the quarter under review from $174.1 Mn in Q2 2024.