Freshworks’ Market Cap Crosses $13.3 Bn After Stellar NASDAQ Debut

In a major boost to India’s startup ecosystem, Chennai-based customer engagement unicorn Freshworks has made a robust debut on the NASDAQ stock exchange and the startups’ market capitalisation crossed $13.3 Bn. 

Its shares closed at $47.55 per share against the issue price of $36. They touched an intra-day high of $48.75 and an intra-day low of $43.12 a share. 

The SaaS unicorn raised over $1.03 Bn from its initial public offering at a valuation of $10.13 Bn.

The company priced its 28.5 Mn shares at $36 a piece, and had earlier expected to raise $969 Mn at the higher end of the price band, but adjusted its price band in the run up to the IPO.

Taking to Twitter, Girish Mathrubootham, the Co-founder of the startup said on Wednesday: “Today is a dream come true for me – from humble beginnings in #Trichy to ringing the bell at @Nasdaq for the FreshWorks IPO. Thank you to our employees, customers, partners, and investors for believing in this dream.”

According to the company, 500 of its shareholding employees in India have become crorepatis following the listing. “Today we have 76% of our employees holding shares. More than 500 of our employees in India are crorepatis and 70 of them are under the age of 30- people who have graduated college a few years ago and they fully deserve it for believing in us over the past ten years,” Mathrubootham said.

The Salesforce rival intends to use the net proceeds of the offering for general corporate purposes, including working capital, operating expenses, and capital expenditures. In its IPO prospectus, the company also said that it may also use a portion of the net proceeds to acquire complementary businesses, products, services, or technologies.

During the 6-months period ended June 30, 2021, Freshworks reported revenue of $168,928, against $110,471 earned during the corresponding period of 2020. It also said that COVID-19 pandemic has affected how the company and its customers operate, including its productivity, and has adversely affected the global economy. The duration and extent to which this will affect its business, future results of operations, and financial condition remains uncertain, it said.

The startup is backed by marquee investors such as Tiger Global, Steadview Capital, Sequoia Capital, among others and has raised a total of $484 Mn in 9 rounds of funding as per Crunchbase. In a postscript of the filing, founder Mathrubootham revealed that the codename of their IPO project was SuperStar named after a Tamil Nadu actor Rajinikanth.