Freshworks opens with a 21% pop in its trading debut

Business software maker Freshworks made its trading debut on Wednesday at $43.5 per share on Nasdaq, up 21% from the company's listing price of $36 per share, giving the company a market cap of $12.3 billion.

Subsequently, the company's share price have reached as high as $47.98 per share at the time of writing this article.

Freshworks, which is the first Indian software-as-a-service firm to go public on the US stock exchanges, was last valued at $3.5 billion when it raised $150 million financing from investors like Sequoia Capital, CapitalG and Accel in November 2019.

Earlier today, the San Mateo, California-based company said it had priced its initial public offering above the target range to raise $1.03 billion from the offering, at a valuation of over $10 billion. On September 20, the firm had stated plans to sell shares in the price range of $32-34 per share, after raising the range from $28-$32 per share.

"I feel like an Indian athlete who has won a gold medal at the Olympics. We are showing the world what a global product company from India can achieve. The fact that we are doing it first in the US markets is truly amazing. Today is day zero for Freshworks all over again and the beginning of so much more" said Freshworks cofounder Girish Mathrubootham during the bell ringing ceremony.

Freshworks plans to use the proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including working capital, operating expenses, and capital expenditures. It may also use a portion of the net proceeds to acquire complementary businesses, products, services, or technologies.

This public offering comes amid increased digitisation and growing adoption for remote work during the Covid-19 pandemic that has seen SaaS IPOs in the US have performed spectacularly, popping (rising sharply) and creating billionaires overnight. The listings of Snowflake, Zoom, Cloudflare and Palantir has also sparked a new wave of enthusiasm from venture capitalists, private equity funds and hedge funds.

Founded in 2010 by Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy as Freshdesk, the company rebranded as Freshworks in 2017. It counts the likes of Accel, Sequoia Capital, and Tiger Global among its investors. It claims to have over 52,500 customers as of August 31.