Title: Freshdesk: bringing in freshness in startup world case

Author (s):: Jois A.; Pallasena R.K.; Chakrabarti S.

Journal: Journal of Information Technology Case and Application Research

Month and Year: April 2020

Abstract: Fresh wave of entrepreneurs are disrupting the startup space with their sheer will to succeed. Freshdesk™ (Freshdesk) is one of the leading SaaS (Software as a Service) cloud based customer support software company started in 2010 on a bootstrap basis by its founders–Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy. Freshdesk freshness has furthered the ambition in entrepreneurs to create unicorns with multibillion dollar valuation. As on 2018 they have more than 50+ million end users with more than 100,000 installations across the globe. Digital technologies, tools & techniques have helped them to go global. After winning $40,000 at the Microsoft BizSpark Startup challenge on 23rd June 2011, they have never looked back. Their first round of funding raised $1Million from Accel Partners. In April 2012, again along with Tiger Global and founders, Accel invested $5 Million as development fund in Series B. Accel and Tiger put the weight behind founders and Freshdesk by injecting $7 Million in December 2013 as Series C for growth strategy. Founders, Accel and Tiger played key role in roping in lone warrior investor in Series D round called Google Capital. Accel, Tiger & Google Capital showed their confidence in management by Series E funding of $50 Million in April 2015 and Series F Funding of $55 Million in November 2016 for both organic and inorganic growth. Freshdesk is on global map with offices across various cities such as Chennai (India), Berlin (Germany), London (UK), Sydney (Australia), San Bruno (CA, USA). Research aspects of this case cover studying startup using case method to understand the various phases of startup, how any entrepreneurs can learn from such a case to understand and transform their startups into successful ventures. © 2020, © 2020 Achutha Jois, Ramnath Krishnan Pallasena and Somnath Chakrabarti.

Document Type: Article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15228053.2020.1718348