Sequoia leads $55m round for India, US-based Freshdesk

The investment included participation from existing backer Accel Partners. It brings the company's total funding to date to about $150 million and is expected to support an expansion of the product line and international footprint.

Freshdesk was founded in India in 2010 and has since relocated headquarters to the US as part of a global expansion initiative that included the establishment of bases Australia, the UK and Germany during the past two years. The company's customer service product portfolio encompasses cloud-based IT helpdesk software, sales tools such as user behavior tracking and client engagement channels including live chat apps and hotlines. Earlier this month, it acquired Indian social chat platform Chatimity to scale this infrastructure.

The company raised a $50 million Series E round last year from Tiger Global Management, Google Capital and Accel. This followed a $31 million Series D round from the same parties the prior year. Tiger and Accel also led two rounds from 2012-13 for a total of $12 million following an initial $1 million commitment by Accel in 2011.

Earlier this year, a report by Google and Accel projected that revenues from India's software-as-a-service (SaaS) space would increase from a level of $600 million in 2015 to $2.5 billion in 2020 and $10 billion in 2025. The study identified customer relationship management, human resources and marketing as SaaS niches that were likely to experience rapid growth in the country.

Sequoia has previously invested in Indian SaaS with a $4 million round for Idea Device in 2013 and a 4.7 million commitment to SirionLabs in 2014. It closed its fifth India fund earlier this year at $920 million.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Support services
• Technology
• Expansion
• India
• USA
• Sequoia Capital
• Accel Partners
• TMT
• professional services