Korea/Asia, Events, IPOs, Douglas Research Advisory

Douglas Kim

Nearly 30 years of experience in the Korean/Asian equity research. Major sectors coverage include the following:
- Technology 
- Consumer 
- Special Situations/Deep Value Plays
- Tender Offers/M&As
- Holdcos/Stubs
- Asian Unicorns/Private Companies

Korea/Asia, Events, IPOs

Asian SaaS Stars: Opportunities, Market Outperformance, & Key Challenges

Freshworks IPO Preview. India’s First SaaS Unicorn

Equity Capital Markets

<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/freshworks-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:34147:1" rel="noopener">Freshworks (FRSH US)</a>is getting ready to complete its IPO in the US Nasdaq market in the coming weeks. Freshworks is a fast growing, customer engagement SaaS software company. The company provides comprehensive SaaS services for marketing, sales, and customer support services.<a href="https://capital.com/freshworks-ipo-is-the-fast-growing-software-startup-a-buy" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Freshworks</a> was originally found in Chennai, India in 2010 by Rathna Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy. Today, Freshworks is headquartered in San Mateo, California and has customers in more than 120 countries. IPO could be valued at about $10 billion - The company has put an IPO placeholder value of $100 million but this is likely to get revised up substantially. Back in April 2021, Reuters mentioned that <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/freshworks-salesforce-rival-files-to-go-public-51630166548" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Freshworks</a> IPO could be valued at nearly $10 billion.<div class="content-highlight">Strong growth in sales and profit margins - The company has excellent financials highlighted by strong revenue and significant improvement in operating margins. The company generated revenue of 249.7 billion won in 2020, up 44.8% YoY and 168.9 billion won in 1H 2021, up 52.9% YoY. Operating margins improvement has been very impressive going from -22.5% in 2020 to -4.8% in 1H 2021, driven by higher sales base and lower R&amp;D and G&amp;A expenses as a percentage of revenues.</div>

Freshworks (FRSH US)is getting ready to complete its IPO in the US Nasdaq market in the coming weeks. Freshworks is a fast growing, customer engagement SaaS software company. The company provides comprehensive SaaS services for marketing, sales, and customer support services. Freshworks was originally found in Chennai, India in 2010 by Rathna Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy. Today, Freshworks is headquartered in San Mateo, California and has customers in more than 120 countries. IPO could be valued at about $10 billion - The company has put an IPO placeholder value of $100 million but this is likely to get revised up substantially. Back in April 2021, Reuters mentioned that Freshworks IPO could be valued at nearly $10 billion.Strong growth in sales and profit margins - The company has excellent financials highlighted by strong revenue and significant improvement in operating margins. The company generated revenue of 249.7 billion won in 2020, up 44.8% YoY and 168.9 billion won in 1H 2021, up 52.9% YoY. Operating margins improvement has been very impressive going from -22.5% in 2020 to -4.8% in 1H 2021, driven by higher sales base and lower R&amp;D and G&amp;A expenses as a percentage of revenues.