Freshworks, which provides customer and employee experience software solutions, announced the pricing of its initial public offering this week. The 28,500,000 shares of Class A common stock at a price to the public of $36.00 per share had the company on Day 1 of trading at above the expected $1.03 billion target, initially valuing the company at $10.13 billion. As of Thursday afternoon, Sept. 23, it was valued at a little more than $8 billion.
The shares began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “FRSH” on Sept. 22. Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and BofA Securities are acting as lead book-running managers for the offering.
Freshworks is headquartered in San Mateo, Calif. Its software is designed to support organizations building customer and employee experiences. Its teams operate from 13 global offices and serves 52,000-plus customers including Bridgestone, Chargebee, DeliveryHero, ITV, Klarna, Multichoice, OfficeMax, TaylorMade and Vice Media.
In other customer experience and digital marketing software news …
Mirakl Announces $555 Million Series E Funding
Mirakl, an enterprise marketplace SaaS platform provider, has announced that the company has raised $555 million in a Series E funding round led by Silver Lake, with participation from long-term investors 83North, Elaia Partners, Felix Capital and Permira. The new funding increases the company’s valuation to more than $3.5 billion.
Mirakl’s valuation has more than doubled since its $300 million Series D funding round announced on Sept. 22, 2020 and led by Permira’s growth fund. This funding will enable Mirakl to grow its enterprise marketplaces and continue to invest in its technology, expertise and partner ecosystem and grow its teams.
Areas targeted for investment include:
- Hiring 350 engineers
- Growing the Mirakl Labs team to 500 by 2023 and focus on expanding AI, automation and features
- Doubling the size of its customer success organization
- Expanding the size of Mirakl Connect, an ecosystem of marketplace-ready sellers
- Expanding geographic reach, with a dual focus on growing its Paris and Boston headquarters and increasing its footprint across major markets in EMEA, the Americas and Asia Pacific
Philippe Corrot and Adrien Nussenbaum are the co-founders and CEOs of Mirakl.
West Monroe Acquires Verys
Digital business consultancy West Monroe has announced it has acquired Verys, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based product engineering services firm. The transaction, which closed on Wednesday, Sept. 22, represents the largest for West Monroe to date.
The acquisition comes on the heels of the firm’s announcement last week that it is making a $250 million investment in continuing to build its end-to-end digital services. It is building a global product development platform, and Verys is part of the platform. It will boost West Monroe’s ability to build and manage digital products for clients as it begins to globally source tech talent, according to West Monroe officials.
Verys was founded in 2012. The company has more than 220 employees. Its employee base covers engineers, UX designers, DevOps specialists and project managers who specialize in building software.
Emplifi Acquires Live Commerce Software Provider Go Instore
Emplifi, a unified customer experience platform, announced the acquisition of Go Instore, a UK-based video powered retail platform. Go Instore enables live commerce by connecting online customers with in-store product experts using immersive HD live video.
Go Instore will be added to the Emplifi Social Commerce Cloud. Live video can be used to provide customers with a number of personalized services. It can also be used to host one-to-many streamed video events from a website or via social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram for product launches, seasonal campaigns or influencer marketing promotions.
Go Instore, which is headquartered in London, has 60+ employees and more than 100 global clients.
Optimizely Launches Data Core Service
Optimizely, which provides digital customer experience software, has introduced data core service. It enhances its digital experience platform (DXP) with deeper analytics and unified data insights across its suite of products, according to Optimizely officials.
The new service will be available to Optimizely cloud customers in Q1 2022 and will be included at no charge, subject to 250K MAU’s usage limit, for customers who are implementing one or more of its solutions, including Content Cloud, Commerce Cloud, B2B Commerce Cloud and Experimentation.
Litmus Announces Adobe Journey Optimizer Integration
Litmus, an email marketing provider, has announced an integration with Adobe Journey Optimizer. The Adobe Experience Cloud application, built natively on Adobe Experience Platform, is a B2C-focused omnichannel marketing tool.
Litmus’ Email Previews will be integrated with Adobe Journey Optimizer, and users can test emails as they build. Marketers can also leverage engagement insights from Litmus.
Brightspot Launches Partner Program
Brightspot, a content management system (CMS) provider, has announced the launch of the Brightspot Partner Program. It is developed for solution partners and digital agencies and consultancies. Brightspot’s API-first platform includes headless capabilities and includes a number of pre-built integrations.
Additional benefits of joining the Brightspot Partner Program include:
- Training on Brightspot’s API-first approach and headless architecture
- Support in co-selling Brightspot with Partner Services
- Continued support: Brightspot supports with customer demos and initial implementations
- Access to the Brightspot Partner Portal
- Referral commission on Brightspot license for closed deals sourced by a partner
- New opportunities sourced by Brightspot for established partners
Bizzabo Expands Leadership Team
Bizzabo, an event success platform, has appointed five event industry executives across product, marketing, sales and account management: Megan Murphy, Tim Bull, Elijah Clark-Ginsberg, Devin Cleary and Sarah North.
Murphy joins Bizzabo as vice president of account management. She was most recently VP of digital sales & partnerships at the Freeman Company.
Bull joins Bizzabo as its first vice president of sales in the EMEA. He previously served as the managing director of sales, EMEA & APAC, at Aventri.
Clark-Ginsberg joins Bizzabo’s product organization as a product manager. Clark-Ginsberg spent the last eight years orchestrating HubSpot’s flagship event: INBOUND.
Cleary joins Bizzabo as vice president of global events. Previously he held roles as an events experience strategist at HubSpot and senior director of corporate events at the American Red Cross.
North joins Cleary’s team as the director of event experiences. North has held event leadership roles at Ellucian, Viacom, Live Nation, Shire, and PTC.
