Girish Mathrubootham’s journey from Zoho executive to Freshworks founder began with an opportunity he spotted while browsing Hacker News. A discussion about Zendesk’s price increases highlighted a gap in the customer-support software market.
Mathrubootham, who had spent nearly a decade at Zoho, approached his colleague Shan Krishnasamy about building a SaaS-based customer-support platform. Both eventually left their jobs in October 2010, and Freshdesk was launched in Chennai later that year.
The company expanded beyond customer support into areas including IT service management, CRM, voice and human resources. This broader product portfolio led to the company adopting the Freshworks name.
Freshworks became a unicorn in 2018 and went public on Nasdaq in September 2021, raising about $1.03 billion through its IPO. As of September 24, 2026, the company had a market capitalization of about $3.34 billion, according to Moneycontrol.
Mathrubootham served as CEO until 2024 and is currently Freshworks’ Founder and Executive Chairman.
