FreshWorks buys marketing software startup Zarget in ninth acquisition

By Disha Sharma

  • 29 Aug 2017

Cloud-based customer engagement platform FreshWorks Inc has acquired marketing software startup Zarget, marking its ninth acquisition over the past two years, a press statement said.

The financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but the statement mentioned that Zarget's angel investors have received their initial investments back.

Osmnez Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs Zarget, has so far raised $7.5 million from Accel Partners, Matrix Partners India and Sequoia Capital India, according to VCCEdge, the data research arm of VCCircle. FreshWorks founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham has also backed the venture.

Founded in 2015 by former Zoho employees Arvind Parthiban (CEO), Naveen Venkat and Santosh Kumar, Chennai-based Zarget provides marketers with a conversion rate optimisation suite, which tells them how users interact with their websites.

“A growing number of our customers have been asking us to help them in their marketing initiatives. Acquiring Zarget will enable FreshWorks to support customers in the pre-acquisition journey as well,” Mathrubootham said.

FreshWorks’ other acquisitions are chatbot venture Joe Hukum; software-as-a-service startup Pipemonk; social chat platform Chatimity; social media analytics venture Airwoot; visual collaboration platform Framebench; in-app customer support startup Konotor; social recommendation platform Frilp; and video chat software 1Click.io.

In June, Freshdesk rebranded itself as FreshWorks to position itself as a multi-product brand.

In November 2016, it raised $55 million in a Series F funding round led by Sequoia Capital India and existing investor Accel Partners. Prior to that, it had raised $50 million in a Series E funding round led by Tiger Global, with participation from Accel Partners and Google Capital.