Freshdesk raises $55M, to focus on product development & expansion

Cloud based customer support platform, FreshDesk, claims to have raised $55 million in a Series F investment round led by Sequoia Capital India and Accel Partners. According to several media reports, the Chennai based SaaS startup had raised its last funding in a Series E round in April 2015, amounting to $50 million, with investors such as Tiger Global Management and Google Capital. Currently, Freshdesk’s total funding received stands somewhere around $150 million. According to the company, the fresh round of funding will be used to focus on product development and expansion in the market. According to a report in Tech In Asia, Freshdesk will be going head to head with Salesforce by offering an all-in-one product for account management, sales leads, user behavioral analytics and push the product by expanding its regional team across the globe. Girish Mathrubootham, Chief Executive Officer, Freshdesk told Economic Times that the company is looking at acquisitions and its focus will remain on growth in the next few years with no plans for either a public listing or a sale any time soon. Recently, Freshdesk also launched two new products recently; Hotline.io, which provides in-app customer support and engagement for mobile-first businesses; and Freshsales, which is a Customer Resource Management solution for sales teams. “They have a world-class product vision and Sequoia is delighted to lead this growth capital round to help scale India’s leading SaaS company,” said Mohit Bhatnagar, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India, who has also joined Freshdesk board of directors as a board observer. Former ZOHO employees Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy founded Freshdesk in 2010. The idea behind the company was to help enterprises provide client support across various different channels like phone, email, forums, chat as well as social media. Currently the company claims to have, over 80,000 customers with companies like Toshiba, 3M and Honda in its portfolio. Freshdesk also became the first Indian company to be added to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Customer Engagement Center.