Freshdesk raises US$ 55 million from Sequoia Capital India and Accel

New Delhi: Enterprise software maker Freshdesk has raised $55 million in a new round of funding led by Sequoia Capital India, along with existing investor, Accel Partners.

The funding comes a year after Freshdesk raised its Series-E round in 2015, when the startup was valued at $500 million.

The six-year-old company has now raised a total of $149 million in venture capital funding with this latest deal, valuing Freshdesk at about $700 million, according to people aware of the transaction.

"The (company) is looking at acquisitions," said Girish Mathrubootham, chief executive officer of Freshdesk, who aims to continue investing in product development and expansion. He said the company's focus will remain on growth in the next few years with no plans for either a public listing or a sale any time soon.

The Chennai-based company was founded by former Zoho employees Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy.

Mohit Bhatnagar, managing director, Sequoia Capital India, has now joined the board of Freshdesk as a board observer. Bhatnagar said the company's "world-class product vision" impressed the investors.

Founded in October 2010, Freshdesk is one of the first software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies from India to take on the global market.Its helpdesk software can be used by customer support agents from around the world on various channels like email, phone and social media.

Other investors in the startup include New York-based Tiger Global, Google Capital and Accel Partners.

"Freshde sk's funding is further validation that Indian SaaS segment is doing very well," said Sharad Sharma, co-founder of software product think-tank iSPIRT. "Indian SaaS startup will continue to build momentum in the coming years due to desk marketing and selling engine. Many winners like Freshdesk are being created across the various verticals and horizontals in SaaS segment."

What makes the Freshdesk's model work is the ability of desk marketing and selling. While most of its development, sales and marketing te am operates out of an office in Chennai, the startup has customers all over the globe.

"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, Accel.

The company has offices in the US, Chennai, London, Sydney and Berlin, and competes with global firms like Zendesk and Salesforce.com. Out of its 886-member team, 845 employees work out of the Chennai office.

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. While several of its 80,000 customers are small and medium businesses, Freshdesk also counts marquee names such as 3M, Sony Motion Pictures, Cisco, SolarCity and Jaguar Land Rover among its clients.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.