‘You have to be willing to make those hard choices’: Freshworks CEO on crossing $1 billion in ARR with 30% fewer employees in the AI software age
Source: Fortune ·
Freshworks killed “$5 million ideas” and moved early-career work to AI, Woodside told Fortune. It was like "saying to somebody that your baby's ugly."
From the source
Freshworks has passed $1 billion in annual recurring revenue, CEO Dennis Woodside told Fortune. The software company, which started about 15 years ago in Chennai, India, as a help-desk tool for small businesses, ended its third quarter on Sept. 30 with about $992 million in annual recurring revenue. It crossed $1 billion in October after closing its acquisitions of Torii and Robusta, the company said. Freshworks doesn’t disclose how much of its ARR came from acquisitions. “$1 billion in ARR is a really important milestone for any software business,” Woodside said in an interview ahead of the results. “It’s a good indication of scale.” Woodside took over as CEO in May 2024 from founder Girish Mathrubootham. “I think we’ve added about $250 million in ARR in that time period,” he said. ARR measures contracted subscription revenue over the next 12 months, so it runs ahead of reported sales. Earlier today, Freshworks reported $18.3 million in GAAP net income for the third quarter, its…
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