Girish Mathrubootham on Crisis Management

The strategic narrative after 2024 has been an explicit upmarket pivot, moving the firm from its SMB-origins base into direct competition with much larger enterprise software vendors — a transition that requires rebalancing AI investment, enterprise expansion and cost discipline while preserving the product simplicity that originally defined the brand.

In May 2026 the firm announced an approximately 11% global workforce reduction — around 500 employees — as it realigned resources around its largest growth opportunities and the AI transition, a restructuring that signals how even a profitable SaaS incumbent must redesign its cost base when category dynamics shift.

Freshworks listed on 22 September 2021 at $36 per share, above the marketed $32–34 range, but by 5 September 2025 the stock had fallen to $13.01 — a sharp drawdown that contextualises the founder's exit and frames a SaaS valuation reset rather than a single-founder issue.