Freshdesk Raises $50 Million To Keep Pace With Zendesk And Salesforce In Customer Service Cloud

When startup Freshdesk raised $31 million dollars last June, the company said it was preparing for the bubble around enterprise tech valuations to burst. Now less than a year later, Freshdesk has gone back to the well for another $50 million—but this time, it’s looking to keep pace.
That trimming to enterprise valuations hasn’t come reckoning, at least yet. All three major players in customer support software have since continued to grow—but Freshdesk is the only private company left of the bunch. So as Freshdesk was able to prove it doubled its own client base in 2014, the company felt justified to return to its existing investors for a bigger cash infusion.

“We know we need to scale our business faster and invest in our product,” says Freshdesk president Dilawar Syed. “We want capital so that it’s something we don’t even think about.”
The 2010-founded Freshdesk’s $50 million Series E round comes from the same investors that backed it in June at the Series D, with Tiger Global leading and Accel Partners and Google GOOGL +2.15% Capital joining in. Though Freshdesk declined to disclose its latest valuation after the funding, the company’s likely now worth in the mid-to-high hundreds of millions.
It’s growing at a 100% clip, faster than the larger competition, with 40,000 customers, a new London office and another in Australia about to come online. A new service IT software that takes the same approach Freshdesk uses for customer service to IT support, called Freshservice, launched last year.
But while Freshdesk can point to anchor clients like 3M MMM +1.73%, Honda and Hugo Boss , its competitors can trot out big logos and impressive numbers, too. When Freshdesk raised last year, it did so on the heels of a successful public offering for a direct competitor, Zendesk, which works with customers like Box , Gilt Groupe and Vodafone and now trades at a market cap of about $2 billion after its stock popped more than 70%. Then there’s Desk.com, the service unit of Salesforce.com, which works with popular startups like One Kings Lane, Spotify and ZenPayroll and took in $1.3 billion in revenue for Marc Benioff last year.
Freshdesk believes it’s set up to grow faster than either of the other “desks.” While Zendesk has more customers—more than 80,000 as of the end of last year, though that included about 34,000 $1 dollar starter accounts [Update: Zendesk says it exceeds 50,000 paid customers when you also count its 24,900 separate live chat accounts]—Syed says Freshdesk’s cost to acquire a new customer is 30% cheaper than its peers. And whereas Zendesk grew 76% for the year in revenue, Freshdesk has grown bookings more than 3x (300%) in the last several years, though it does not break out its paid vs. unpaid customers as a private company.
“The opportunity in this space overall is continuing to expand,” Syed says. “And we’ve done it by focusing on product, then hiring, and really managed our marketing spend.”

How Freshdesk pitches itself against its strong competition is to offer as much of a “consumerized” approach to onboarding and use for business customers as possible. Free trial users should be able to launch within minutes. And Freshdesk has to walk the walk on its own product by offering quick support to make sure customers know what they’re doing. That means much of the money raised will go back into engineering talent and the product itself, with an increasing focus on mobile.
“There are larger competitors that are more well-known, but if you contact them for help, when they do get back to you the answer isn’t that helpful,” says Joshua Barnett, IT manager at SolarCity, the $5 billion (market cap) solar company founded by Elon Musk and a Freshdesk client since June of 2014. “IT here can focus on key issues and our customer base can reach out directly when needed.”
Freshdesk hopes to woo more large-scale clients through international strength, with the European and Australian offices joining its headquarters in San Francisco and original founding location of Chennai in India. Its lead investor in this latest funding, Tiger Global, is known for spotting international tech investments originally based in China and India.
“We are seeing with cloud computing that you can build a global product from anywhere,” says Syed, before appropriating an old imperial slogan to describe the startup’s expansionist hopes.
“We like to say that the sun never sets on Freshdesk employees.”

forbes.

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Sandhurst's sheikhs: Why do so many Gulf royals receive military training in the UK? A parade outside the building at Sandhurst Continue reading the main story In today's Magazine The death list that names 5,000 victims Is this woman an apostate? Voices from a WW1 prison camp The Swiss selfie scandal Generations of foreign royals - particularly from the Middle East - have learned to be military leaders at the UK's Sandhurst officer training academy. But is that still a good idea, asks Matthew Teller. Since 1812, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, on the Surrey/Berkshire border, has been where the British Army trains its officers. It has a gruelling 44-week course testing the physical and intellectual skills of officer cadets and imbuing them with the values of the British Army. Alongside would-be British officers, Sandhurst has a tradition of drawing cadets from overseas. Many of the elite families of the Middle East have sent their sons and daughters. Perhaps the most notable was King Hussein of Jordan. Continue reading the main story Find out more Matthew Teller presents Sandhurst and the Sheikhs, a Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4, on Wednesday 27 August 2014 at 11:00 BST It will be available on iPlayer shortly after broadcast Four reigning Arab monarchs are graduates of Sandhurst and its affiliated colleges - King Abdullah of Jordan, King Hamad of Bahrain, Sheikh Tamim, Emir of Qatar, and Sultan Qaboos of Oman. Past monarchs include Sheikh Saad, Emir of Kuwait, and Sheikh Hamad, Emir of Qatar. Sandhurst's links have continued from the time when Britain was the major colonial power in the Gulf. "One thing the British were excellent at was consolidating their rule through spectacle," says Habiba Hamid, former foreign policy strategist to the rulers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. "Pomp, ceremony, displays of military might, shock and awe - they all originate from the British military relationship." Sheikh Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa, King Abdullah, Sultan Qaboos Sandhurst alumni: King Hamad of Bahrain, King Abdullah of Jordan and Sultan Qaboos of Oman It's a place where future leaders get to know each other, says Michael Stephens, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, Qatar. And Sandhurst gives the UK influence in the Gulf. "The [UK] gets the kind of attention from Gulf policy elites that countries of our size, like France and others, don't get. It gives us the ability to punch above our weight. "You have people who've spent time in Britain, they have… connections to their mates, their teachers. Familiarity in politics is very beneficial in the Gulf context." "For British people who are drifting around the world, as I did as a soldier," says Brigadier Peter Sincock, former defence attache to Saudi Arabia, "you find people who were at Sandhurst and you have an immediate rapport. I think that's very helpful, for example, in the field of military sales." The Emir of Dubai Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum with his son after his Passing Out Parade at Sandhurst in 2006 Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Emir of Dubai, with his son in uniform at Sandhurst in 2006 Her Majesty The Queen's Representative His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, The Emir of Qatar inspects soldiers during the 144th Sovereign's Parade held at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on April 8, 2004 in Camberley, England. Some 470 Officer cadets took part of which 219 were commissioned into the British Army Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar until 2013, inspects soldiers at Sandhurst in 2004 Emotion doesn't always deliver. In 2013, despite the personal intervention of David Cameron, the UAE decided against buying the UK's Typhoon fighter jets. But elsewhere fellow feeling is paying dividends. "The Gulf monarchies have become important sources of capital," says Jane Kinninmont, deputy head of the Middle East/North Africa programme at the foreign affairs think tank Chatham House. "So you see the tallest building in London being financed by the Qataris, you see UK infrastructure and oilfield development being financed by the UAE. There's a desire - it can even seem like a desperation - to keep them onside for trade reasons." British policy in the Gulf is primarily "mercantile", says Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, of the Baker Institute in Houston, Texas. Concerns over human rights and reform are secondary. The Shard at dusk The Shard was funded by Qatari investors In 2012 Sandhurst accepted a £15m donation from the UAE for a new accommodation block, named the Zayed Building after that country's founding ruler. In March 2013, Sandhurst's Mons Hall - a sports centre - was reopened as the King Hamad Hall, following a £3m donation from the monarch of Bahrain, who was educated at one of Sandhurst's affiliated colleges. The renaming proved controversial, partly because of the perceived slight towards the 1,600 British casualties at the Battle of Mons in August 1914 - and partly because of how Hamad and his government have dealt with political protest in Bahrain over the last three years. A critic might note that the third term of Sandhurst's Officer Commissioning Course covers counter-insurgency techniques and ways to manage public disorder. Since tension between Bahrain's majority Shia population and minority Sunni ruling elite boiled over in 2011, more than 80 civilians have died at the hands of the security forces, according to opposition estimates, though the government disputes the figures. Thirteen police officers have also lost their lives in the clashes. "The king has always felt that Sandhurst was a great place," says Sincock, chairman of the Bahrain Society, which promotes friendship between the UK and Bahrain. "Something like 20 of his immediate family have been there as cadets. He didn't really understand why there was such an outcry." David Cameron and King Hamad David Cameron meeting King Hamad in 2012... A protester is held back by police ... while protesters nearby opposed the Bahrain ruler's human rights record Crispin Black, a Sandhurst graduate and former instructor, says the academy should not have taken the money. "Everywhere you look there's a memorial to something, a building or a plaque that serves as a touchstone that takes you right to the heart of British military history. Calling this hall 'King Hamad Hall' ain't gonna do that." Sandhurst gave a written response to the criticism. "All donations to Sandhurst are in compliance with the UK's domestic and international legal obligations and our values as a nation. Over the years donations like this have saved the UK taxpayer a considerable amount of money." But what happens when Sandhurst's friends become enemies? In 2001, then-prime minister Tony Blair visited Damascus, marking a warming of relations between the UK and Syria. Shortly after, in 2003, Sandhurst was training officers from the Syrian armed forces. Now, of course, Syria is an international pariah. Journalist Michael Cockerell has written about Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi's time at the Army School of Education in Beaconsfield in 1966: "Three years [later], Gaddafi followed a tradition of foreign officers trained by the British Army. He made use of his newfound knowledge to seize political power in his own country." Ahmed Ali Sandhurst-trained Ahmed Ali was a key player in the Egyptian military's removal of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi That tradition persists. In the 1990s Egyptian colonel Ahmed Ali attended Sandhurst. In 2013 he was one of the key figures in the Egyptian military's removal of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, now rewarded by a post in President Sisi's inner circle of advisers. In the late 1990s there were moves by the British government under Tony Blair to end Sandhurst's training of overseas cadets. Major-General Arthur Denaro, Middle East adviser to the defence secretary and commandant at Sandhurst in the late 1990s, describes the idea as part of the "ethical foreign policy" advocated by the late Robin Cook, then-foreign secretary. Tony Blair and Robin Cook Tony Blair and Robin Cook at one point planned to end Sandhurst's training of overseas cadets The funeral of King Hussein in 1999 appears to have scuppered the plan. "Coming to that funeral were the heads of state of almost every country in the world - and our prime minister was there, Tony Blair," says Major-General Denaro. "He happened to see me talking to heads of state - the Sultan of Brunei, the Sultan of Oman, the Bahrainis, the Saudis - and he said 'How do you know all these guys?' The answer was because they went to Sandhurst." Today, Sandhurst has reportedly trained more officer cadets from the UAE than from any other country bar the UK. The May 2014 intake included 72 overseas cadets, around 40% of whom were from the Middle East. "In the future," says Maryam al-Khawaja, acting president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, "people will look back at how much Britain messed up in the [Middle East] because they wanted to sell more Typhoon jets to Bahrain, rather than stand behind the values of human rights and democracy." "It's one thing saying we're inculcating benign values, but that's not happening," says Habiba Hamid. Sandhurst is "a relic of the colonial past. They're not [teaching] the civic values we ought to find in democratically elected leaders." line Who else went to Sandhurst? Princes William and Harry, Winston Churchill, Ian Fleming, Katie Hopkins, Antony Beevor, James Blunt, Josh Lewsey, Devon Harris (From left to right) Princes William and Harry Sir Winston Churchill Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond (but did not complete training) Katie Hopkins, reality TV star Antony Beevor, historian James Blunt, singer-songwriter Josh Lewsey, World Cup-winning England rugby player Devon Harris, member of Jamaica's first bobsleigh team line Sandhurst says that "building international relations through military exchanges and education is a key pillar of the UK's international engagement strategy". Sandhurst may be marvellous for the UK, a country where the army is subservient to government, but it is also delivering militarily-trained officers to Middle Eastern monarchies where, often, armies seem to exist to defend not the nation but the ruling family.

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