Freshworks IPO aims to raise around $1B at a valuation of $9B

SaaS unicorn Freshworks plans to raise close to $1 billion from its initial public offering (IPO), which will value the California company at a reported valuation of $9 billion.

In a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company said it will be offering 28.5 million shares, with a price range of $28 to $32 per share. This could see Freshworks raising anywhere between $798 million and $912 million.

“Freshworks Inc. is offering 28,500,000 shares of our Class A common stock. This is our initial public offering, and no public market currently exists for shares of our Class A common stock. We anticipate that the initial public offering price will be between $28.00 and $32.00 per share,” the filing noted.

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Freshworks — which emerged as the poster child for the SaaS industry in India — is one of the most anticipated IPOs from the Indian startup ecosystem.

The company, providing an update on its financial performance, stated that its total revenue for the six months ending June 30, 2021, stood at $168.9 million, up 53 percent compared to $110.5 million in the comparable period of the previous year.

The total revenue for 2020 was at $249.7 million, up 45 percent compared to $172.4 million in the previous year.

It also saw its net loss declined by 83 percent. For the first six months in 2021, the net losses stood at $9.8 million as compared to $57.1 million in the comparable period last year.

Freshworks, which has Accel, Sequoia Capital India, and Tiger Global as its key investors, was last valued at $3.5 billion when it raised its funding in November 2019.

As the filings noted, “Freshworks is the company that wasn’t supposed to win. Whether we could differentiate ourselves in crowded markets, or compete with larger players, or build a global SaaS company from India, the doubts were always there. And people were not shy about telling me!”

The company added, "It offered a ‘fresh’ approach relying on efficient, product-led, low-cost, and low-touch sales, and we targeted massive, underserved markets."

According to Freshworks, the addressable market opportunity is around $120 billion, quoting research from IDC, while its internal analysis shows an annual potential market size for its products to be around $77 billion.