Getting rich overnight is a lot like getting famous overnight. People view you differently. You instantly become well-known. But what when a chunk of employees from a single enterprise become rich together? History is created!
Freshworks Inc, based in California builds technology that is in use by fifty thousand companies. Five hundred employees at Freshworks have become crorepatis on a single day, when their company got listed on Nasdaq Stock exchange in United States. It became the first Software-as-a-service (SaaS) company of Indian origin to be listed on Nasdaq. The listing was excellent. The IPO’s price was set at $36 but it climbed through the day and ended up 4$7per share. This achievement has managed to spell triumph for stakeholders, employees and the owner too.
Girish Mathrubootam founded Freshworks in 2010 and after fundraising over all these years, he still as a 7% stake in the firm. However, at a share price of $47, Girish is worth nearly $800 million that amounts to Rs 5,600 crore from his company shares alone. “I feel like an athlete who has won a gold medal at the Olympics”, says the founder and CEO.
Today is a dream come true for me – from humble beginnings in #Trichy to ringing the bell at @Nasdaq for the FreshWorks IPO. Thank you to our employees, customers, partners, and investors for believing in this dream. #Freshworks #IPO #NASDAQ pic.twitter.com/fXz73YxXXR
— Girish Mathrubootham (@mrgirish) September 22, 2021
Nearly 75% of Freshworks’ 4,300 employees hold shares in the company. The splendid listing has gotten more than 10% of the company’s employees to become crorepatis. And out of these 500 employees, 69 of them are not even 30 years old.
The investors had the most encouraging words for Girish, his team and his vision. Accel had backed Freshworks since inception. It now owns nearly 25% of shares amounting to nearly 300 billion dollars. Even Tiger Global has been investing since the company was a startup and has now earned 335 times its then investment. Sequoia had invested in 2016 and now its 12% stake in the company is worth $41.5 billion. Google’s investment arm, CapitalG’s 8% holdings in Freshworks is worth more than $1 billion.
Many took to social media to congratulate this feat, unmatched by any other company.
Cool photo from Freshwork’s IPO, which values the company at ~$13B
The first public ‘global’ Indian SaaS company pic.twitter.com/qfHYTJjZ56
— Tanay Jaipuria (@tanayj) September 22, 2021
HUGE congrats @mrgirish and team @FreshworksInc. Super proud and inspiring moment for the eco-system 🙏 And kudos to @skirani Lee Fixel and @mobhat for being early believers
— Tarun Davda (@tarun_davda) September 22, 2021
