Freshworks Strengthens Customer Success Biz With Natero Acquisition

Chennai-based SaaS unicorn Freshworks has announced that it has acquired Silicon Valley-based customer success management software Natero for an undisclosed amount. Freshworks’s Natero acquisition would help the former strengthen its customer success vertical and create more visibility for customer needs among its operational teams.

In a media statement, Freshworks said that the acquisition will help the company put actionable data in the hands of customer success professionals through Natero’s artificial intelligence and machine learning platforms.

Founded in 2012 by Craig Soules, Natero offers customer success solution that combines predictive analytics, customer intelligence and workflow management. The data-driven platform enables businesses to proactively monitor and manage customer satisfaction, and maximise value over the customer life cycle.

Freshworks: $100 Mn ARR, Unicorn Club And More

Freshdesk was launched in 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamyas a helpdesk software for customer support and was rebranded to Freshworks in June 2017. It claims to have over 150K clients worldwide using the Freshworks software product suites, including leading companies such as the NHS, Honda, Rightmove, Hugo Boss, Citizens Advice, Toshiba, and Cisco, among others.

The company raised $100 Mn last July and entered the unicorn club at a valuation of $1.5 Bn. The company is backed by marquee investors such as Tiger Global and Sequoia. The company also reached $100 Mn ARR and launched a suite of services— Freshworks360.

Inc42 had analysed earlier that Freshworks’ growth has been supported by strong financials, an acquisition-led growth strategy and bundled a suite of services with individual products. The Natero deal is a bit of a landmark for Freshworks as it is the company’s tenth acquisition overall.

The majority of its previous deals were aquihires, intended to bolster the tech platform. With $100 Mn funding, Freshworks was open to more such acquisitions in the near future. Arvind Parthiban, director of marketing at Freshworks, had told us, “All our acquisitions so far have either been to bolster our team or fill a gap in technology. If there are similar scenarios in the future we will definitely consider that option.”

The Synergies: Freshworks Natero Acquisition

The SaaS company said Freshworks’ Natero acquisition would be used to easily predict and prevent customer churn, increase account expansion and manage more customers with fewer resources.

Mathrubootham said that the acquisition extends the company’s ‘customer-for-life’ vision to all teams, including account managers and customer success personnel who require up-to-date customer usage and account health data to proactively engage those accounts at risk of churn, or upsell to those accounts ready to buy more.

The Freshworks team believes that with Natero coming on, its operations will get a holistic view of customers, operationalized success and streamlined business intelligence. According to Freshworks’ New Rules of Customer Engagement report, 56% of global consumers would switch brands after just one bad service experience.

Expected to reach $1 Bn by 2020, the Indian SaaS and enterprise software market currently accounts for 9% of all software sales. It is expected to cross $50 Bn in the next 10 years, according to a report by Google and Accel Partners in 2016.

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