Girish Mathrubootham was born in Trichy in 1974. He joined AdventNet, later Zoho, for 5,000 rupees a month and spent nine years at ManageEngine, rising to VP of Product Management.
In May 2010 a Hacker News comment about Zendesk pushed him to start his own company. He and Shan Krishnasamy resigned in October 2010. The team was six people with a $5,000 monthly burn, an office at about $160 a month, and no pay for Girish.
When his post about leaving his job reached Hacker News, top venture firms called. Accel offered a million-dollar term sheet. Freshdesk launched Freshservice in 2014 and Freshsales in 2016, and was renamed Freshworks in 2017.
Zoho sued Freshworks in 2020 over alleged IP theft and the case settled in 2021. Freshworks listed on Nasdaq in September 2021, raising about $1.03 billion. In 2024 Dennis Woodside became CEO. In 2025 the company posted revenue of $838.8 million and its first GAAP-profitable year.