Freshworks Technologies Pvt. Ltd, the wholly-owned Indian subsidiary of cloud-based customer engagement platform Freshworks Inc, more than doubled its revenue and net profit during the financial year 2015-16.
The Chennai-based company posted gross revenues of Rs 94.89 crore, up from Rs 44.08 crore in the previous fiscal, show its consolidated financials filed with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Net profit for FY16 rose to Rs 8.6 crore from Rs 3.86 crore in the previous year. Gross profit, too, increased to Rs 13.33 crore from Rs 5.82 crore in FY15.
However, total expenditure also rose sharply to Rs 81.55 crore from Rs 38.26 crore in FY15. Employee benefit expenses stood at Rs 63.57 crore, accounting for the bulk of the expenses.
In May, the founder and CEO of a Chennai-based accelerator had remarked on LinkedIn about FreshWorks' employee count of 900, a number he thought was bloated vis-a-vis companies like Skype, Instagram and WhatsApp, which were built by a small set of engineers. FreshWorks co-founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham, however, gave a point-by-point rebuttal.
E-mail queries have been sent to FreshWorks seeking more information on the company’s financials.
The Indian subsidiary recognises revenues from software development, and sales and marketing support services rendered to its California-headquartered holding company.
FreshWorks, which also has operations in the UK, Australia, and Germany, does not reveal its revenues. However, media reports suggest that it might have clocked upwards of $50 million for FY16, with the Indian operations likely contributing close to 30%. In a report in April, Factor Daily said that FreshWork’s consolidated revenues are likely to have grown to $70 million for FY17.
In an interview with VCCircle in June, Mathrubootham had said that the company had been registering 70% year-on-year growth over the last two years.
Founded in 2011 by former Zoho employees Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy, FreshWorks (formerly Freshdesk) is backed by the likes of Capital G (formerly Google Capital), Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners. It has raised close to $150 million in external funding so far, according to VCCEdge, the data research platform of News Corp VCCircle.
The company counts brands like Honda, Bridgestone, Hugo Boss, Toshiba and Cisco, and University of Pennsylvania among its customers.
The company rebranded itself as FreshWorks in June to showcase its multi-product positioning, and demonstrate that there was more to its business than its flagship product Freshdesk. Launched in 2010, Freshdesk allows organisations to support customers through multiple channels such as email, phone, websites, mobile apps, forums and social media.
Other offerings from the company are Freshservice, a cloud-based service desk and IT service management solution; Freshsales, a full-feature customer resource management solution for sales teams; and Freshcaller, a fully functional call centre on the cloud. Earlier this month, it launched Freshteam, a recruitment management software.
FreshWorks has also made a string of acquisitions as part of its growth strategy. Earlier this week, it made its ninth acquisition, buying Chennai-based marketing software startup Zarget.