Software as a Service firm Freshworks Inc employees including its founder Girish Mathrubootham and other senior executives have offered to sell over 13.5 million shares worth over $500 million, in one of the largest employee stock option schemes in India.
The employees were selling approximately 13,555,142 Class A shares, worth over $584 milion at $43.15 per share, the company said in a filing made to the Securities Exchange Commission. The company shares were trading at approximately $40 a piece on the Nasdaq on Monday.
Top selling shareholders include founder Girish Mathrubootham, who is selling about 24.22 lakh shares, chief financial officer Tyler Sloat who is selling about 4.5 lakh shares, while the chief revenue officer Jose Morales is selling about 3 lakh shares, according to the filing.
"While the shares that were released on November 4 were based on 20% of the holdings, to the extent vested, not all the shares eligible for the lockup release were sold. With respect to the shares that were sold last week, almost all of those reflected the automatic sell-to-cover transactions to pay the taxes (which varied based on the individual employee's tax rate). Our Section 16 officers (Girish, Tyler and Jose) only have their required sell-to-cover transactions at this time, which will be reflected in their upcoming required filings with the SEC," a Freshworks spokesperson said.
The company made its public debut on US-based Nasdaq in September after it raised over $1.03 billion as a part of the listing.
At that point, Mathrubootham said that more than 500 employees had become crorepaties via the company’s employee stock option plan.
Last week, the company reported its third quarter revenue at $96.6 million, a growth of 46% compared to the third quarter of 2020. However, it said its loss from operations was $140.3 million for the same period.
Note: This article has been updated to reflect a comment from Freshworks.