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India’s IPO gold rush continues, with SaaS unicorn Freshworks the latest to join the bandwagon.

The Chennai and San Mateo-based startup has filed for a $100 million IPO in the US. It intends to list its Class A common stock on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “FRSH”. The $3.5 billion-SaaS powerhouse is reportedly seeking a post-IPO valuation of $10 billion. 

In an interesting postscript in the S1 filings, Freshworks Founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham doffed his hat to Tamil cinema superstar Rajinikanth, acknowledging him as his ‘maanaseega guru’ (loosely translated to ‘mentor from afar’). He also revealed that Freshworks’ codename for the IPO roadmap was ‘Project SuperStar’. 

The company shared that its last twelve months (LTM) revenue has jumped 49 percent to $308 million, while losses were trimmed to $10 million. Freshworks has over 52,500 enterprise customers around the world, and is chasing a $120 billion global SaaS opportunity. 

This is India’s second high-profile unicorn IPO after Zomato’s successful listing on the BSE last month. The Rs 9,375 crore public listing of Zomato, which includes a Rs 375 crore secondary share sale by Info Edge, received overwhelming support from investors, and was oversubscribed by around 44 times.

Earlier this month, vertical commerce unicorn Nykaa too filed for an IPO, becoming the first profitable startup to do so. Meanwhile, travel startup ixigo, has also filed preliminary papers with the capital markets regulator SEBI to raise Rs 1,600 crore through an initial share sale. 

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Dating app for Indian users

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News & Updates

Before you go, stay inspired with… 

“I want to go and accomplish bigger things, but it doesn’t mean that I have to. Even if I’m taken out as the CEO of Freshworks tomorrow, I will still be happy that I have been able to come so far, and I will talk about that and do what I can with my friends and I’ll be happy. Being happy is a choice, and I have made that choice several years ago in my life.”

— Girish Mathrubootham, Founder and CEO, Freshworks

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