FRESHWORKS Inc. aims to raise nearly $ 1 billion through a public listing in the United States at a valuation of nearly $ 9 billion, making it the most valuable software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup in the world. India.
In its latest filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, Freshworks said it plans to offer 28.5 million Class A common shares at a price range of $ 28 to $ 32 per share. With this, the unicorn will seek to raise between $ 798 million and $ 912 million through the initial public offering (IPO).
Freshworks will seek a nearly $ 9 billion valuation at the upper end of the price band, the filing showed. This will make Freshworks the most valuable SaaS startup in India, after listing, surpassing the application program interface (API) development platform, Postman, which was recently valued at $ 5.6 billion and the platform of mobile app test, BrowserStack valued at $ 4 billion this year.
Freshworks was last valued at $ 3.5 billion in November 2019.
Last month, the company made its first filing with the US SEC for the IPO.
“We have two classes of authorized ordinary shares: Class A ordinary shares and Class B ordinary shares. The rights of holders of Class A ordinary shares and Class B ordinary shares are identical, except with respect to voting and conversion. Each A share of the Class A common stock is entitled to one vote. Each share of the Class B common stock is entitled to 10 votes and is convertible at any time into one share of the Class A common stock, “Freshworks said in its latest filing. .
“The outstanding shares of Class B common shares will represent approximately 98.9% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock immediately following this offering, with our directors, executive officers and principal shareholders representing approximately 78.3% of such voting power “, according to the last presentation.
Freshworks follows a dual headquarters model between San Mateo, California in the United States and Chennai in India. Founded in India, most of Freshworks’ technology and operations team is based in the country.
The 11-year-old startup has hired Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, BofA Securities, Jefferies and Barclays, among others, to manage the sale of shares.
Mint previously reported that Freshworks was looking to use the proceeds from the IPO for general corporate purposes, including working capital needs, operating expenses and capital expenditures. It will also use a portion of the net proceeds for acquisitions or strategic investments in complementary businesses, products, services or technologies.
“Freshworks is a very special company. We were unconventional from the beginning, not for its own sake, but because we saw an opening in the market for a unique approach … We offered a” fresh “approach that is based on efficient, targeted sales. for low-cost, low-touch products, and we were targeting massive, underserved markets. And we had a simple mantra: Happy employees create happy customers. In fact, we made that our mission, “said Freshworks founder Girish. Mathrubootham, in a letter, as part of the IPO presentations.
Freshworks will be the first to lead the group of Indian startups actively seeking to go public in the coming months. The others include payment service provider Pine Labs, Walmart-owned online retailer Flipkart, and mobile advertiser InMobi.
Freshworks has raised more than $ 327 million in funding so far from Accel, CapitalG, Sequoia India, and Tiger Global Management. It has more than 52,500 clients in 120 countries.
The company reported a 45% growth in revenue in 2020 to around $ 250 million. The loss, however, increased 84% during the period to $ 57.3 million.
The company is making efforts to reduce its losses in 2021. For the six months ended June 30, the company’s loss fell sharply to $ 9.84 million from $ 57 million in the prior year.
