Freshworks has surpassed $300 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), growing its business by 40 percent year-over-year in 2020, according to a statement released by the company. The news reinforces Wall Street speculation that the company may pursue an IPO (initial public offering) in 2021. The software company develops customer relationship management (CRM) and IT service management (ITSM) software, as well as customer engagement solutions.
In 2020, Freshworks launched a CRM solution, built on its Freshworks Neo customer data aggregation platform; closed two strategic acquisitions and expanded its executive leadership team. The company said its next major goal is to reach $1 billion in revenue, according to the statement.
Freshworks Acquisitions, Executive Hires
Freshworks acquired AnsweriQ, a provider of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) for larger enterprises, to complement Freshworks' AI engine, Freddy, according to the statement. AnsweriQ and Freddy will enable enterprise organizations to use existing customer data to scale self-service experiences and automate complex customer workflows, according to the statement. The company also acquired Flint, a leading IT orchestration and cloud management platform, to bolster Freshservice's IT service management (ITSM) and IT operations management (ITOM) capabilities, according to the statement.
Freshworks also made a number of executive hires. Tyler Sloat joined the company as chief financial officer, Pradeep Rathinam from AnsweriQ became chief customer officer, Prakash Ramamurthy joined from Oracle as chief product officer and José Morales from Atlassian became Freshworks’ chief revenue officer.
"Like everyone, our 2020 plan went out the window when the pandemic hit, but our hard-working team persevered," said Girish Mathrubootham, Freshworks founder and CEO. "Our mission is to create customers for life and during this past year, this goal was put to the test. Our team rose to the challenge and rallied around our customers to help them navigate unknown waters and empower their employees to respond to increasing customer demands."
