Gupshup Secures $60M Funding to Boost Conversational AI Platform and Expand Globally

Gupshup raises $60M in equity and debt, leaves unicorn status hanging | TechCrunch

Gupshup, a business messaging startup that began its journey in India over two decades ago and became a unicorn four years ago, has raised a new over $60 million round -- but is keeping its new valuation under wraps. In 2021, Gupshup raised two funding rounds within four months, securing $340 million from prominent investors including Tiger Global, Fidelity Management, Think Investments, and Malabar Investments. These rounds -- the startup's first in roughly a decade -- valued Gupshup at $1.4 billion. However, Fidelity, which led the round following its unicorn milestone, slashed its internal valuation of the startup at least three times between 2023 and 2024, bringing it down to as low as $486 million. The new funding round, which combines equity and debt financing from Globespan Capital Partners and EvolutionX Debt Capital, aims to help the San Francisco-headquartered startup expand its presence across its high-growth markets, including India, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. The startup would not reveal the exact debt portion although its founder and CEO Beerud Seth told TechCrunch that the equity part is "a little more than half." In 2004, Gupshup -- derived from Indian slang meaning "conversations" -- started as a platform to help businesses connect with their customers through text messages. It gained popularity as text messages were not free at the time, and people were seeking ways to send messages to their friends and community groups. However, as communication shifted from short messaging service (SMS) to WhatsApp and Rich Communication Services (RCS), the startup moved to these avenues with its chatbot services. Now, as AI has become a catchall term, and AI agents -- software that can perform specific tasks on behalf of users -- have emerged everywhere, Gupshup has started enabling businesses to deploy agents. "There's a lot of demand coming from enterprises. Everybody needs to build these AI agents, which work through messaging like RCS and WhatsApp or through voice. So, building out these agents, there's huge demand, and we need to support it," Seth said. Globally, AI agents are gaining traction, with startups building them drawing strong investor interest. Tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are also exploring how to bring more of these agents to users through their own platforms. The result: competition is heating up. Gupshup does not view the rising competition as a threat. Seth pointed to the startup's substantial install base -- which exceeds 50,000 customers across more than 100 countries -- and its track record of product innovation, driven by years of experience in business messaging, strategic acquisitions, and internal R&D. "Businesses cannot use simple foundation models off the shelf and just put them in front of customers. They need a lot of customization to be done, and that's where Gupshup comes in. That's what we provide," he noted. Since its last round in July 2021, the startup "tripled" its revenue and grew its profitability, Sheth said. However, it is unclear whether that resulted in an increased valuation, as, he said, this latest round was not priced. "As a founder, you focus on value, and the valuation will follow," Seth said when asked whether he still considers the startup a unicorn. "We operate ourselves like we are going to be a big company." Alongside expanding geographically, the startup aims to utilize its fresh funding to enhance its products, which are used in industries including automotive, banking, e-commerce, fintech, media, payments, retail, and travel. Its products also include click-to-chat ads, an AI campaign copilot, agent assist, and campaign manager. Gupshup claims to power over 120 billion messages annually for thousands of enterprises. Looking ahead, the startup sees an IPO as its next major milestone. "We're talking to all our advisors, lawyers, bankers, accountants, and so on, to figure this out," Seth said. The startup has no specific timeline for its public listing, although Seth told TechCrunch that it could happen in 18-24 months. Gupshup is exploring whether it should list on Indian stock exchanges -- a move that makes strategic sense, as the startup views India, where WhatsApp dominates, as a more favorable market. Among the reasons: it's easier to communicate its story to local retail investors, who are more familiar with WhatsApp and understand how Gupshup's products, including its AI agents, operate within the platform. However, since Gupshup is domiciled in the U.S., a flip to India would trigger tax liabilities, which could require additional funding. The IPO "is the one thing that we don't control entirely. The calendar depends as much on external factors as it does on the company," Seth said.

Gupshup raises over $60M to expand its conversational AI and messaging platform - SiliconANGLE

Gupshup raises over $60M to expand its conversational AI and messaging platform Gupshup Inc., the developer of a conversational artificial intelligence platform for marketing, commerce and support automation, announced Wednesday it raised over $60 million in mixed equity and debt financing from Globespan Capital Partners and EvolutionX Debt Capital to expand its operations. Founded in 2004, Gupshup began as a text messaging platform and now focuses on building industry-trained AI agents to help businesses handle customer and employee interactions across multiple communication channels. These include voice, websites, text services and mobile apps. The company's AI agent solutions are tailored for industry-specific capabilities, with the flexibility to adapt to industry jargon and company culture. They can also engage with customers through conversational AI experiences, supporting use cases such as marketing, sales and support. "We're at an inflection point where AI Agents are transitioning from experimental technology to business-critical infrastructure, leading to extraordinary global demand for our solutions," said Beerud Sheth, founder and chief executive of Gupshup. "Businesses recognize that conversational AI is driving enormous competitive advantages through superior customer experiences." Since emerging as a technology, AI agents have captured enterprise attention with their capability to complete tasks with little or no human supervision. Major tech companies, including Amazon.com Inc., Google LLC and others, have started to provide agentic AI services. Model developers, such as OpenAI, Anthropic PBC and Meta Platforms Inc., have released upgraded large language models to power AI agent feature sets. Gupshup currently boasts over 50,000 customers spanning over 130 countries, including automotive-industry focused Petromin Corp., Dutch paint manufacturer Akzo Nobel N.V. and Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. The company says that it currently powers over 120 billion messages annually with its Conversation Cloud technology. Its competitors include companies such as Twilio Inc., Yellow.ai and Bird B.V. "Gupshup has been the market leader at every stage of industry evolution from basic messaging to conversational AI across text and voice, which has led to consistent revenue growth and margin expansion," said Rahul Shah, partner at EvolutionX Debt Capital.

Gupshup Raises Over $60 Million in Funding to Fuel its Conversational AI | AIM

This investment will drive the expansion of Gupshup's Conversational AI and messaging platform, targeting key growth markets in India, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. Gupshup, the Cupertino-based conversational AI startup, announced on July 23 that it has raised over $60 million through a funding round that includes both equity and debt financing from Globespan Capital Partners and EvolutionX Debt Capital. The funds will be allocated towards the expansion of its conversational AI and messaging platform, as well as to accelerate market execution in high-growth areas such as India, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, according to the press release. This investment underscores Gupshup's status as a market leader in facilitating customer engagement through conversational AI experiences delivered via text and voice messaging. The company says that it serves over 50,000 clients across 130 countries and has been acknowledged by industry analysts such as Gartner, IDC, and Juniper for its AI capabilities in Conversational AI. According to the startup, the investment will be strategically utilised to boost sales efficiency, foster product innovation, and enhance market presence across critical sectors worldwide. "We're at an inflexion point where AI Agents are transitioning from experimental technology to business-critical infrastructure, leading to extraordinary global demand for our solutions. Businesses recognise that conversational AI is driving enormous competitive advantages through superior customer experiences," said Beerud Sheth, founder and CEO of Gupshup. Gupshup's platform helps businesses automate complex customer interactions with personalised, human-like conversations. Some of its offerings include Conversational AI agents, click-to-chat ads, an AI campaign copilot, and campaign management, allowing companies to manage product exploration, purchases, and customer support, transitioning from traditional chatbots to autonomous agents. The company claims that its platform facilitates over 120 billion messages annually for thousands of businesses, equipped with sophisticated AI capabilities that make it a comprehensive solution for those aiming to deploy conversational engagement at scale.

Conversational AI platform Gupshup raises $60 million from Globespan, EvolutionX

Gupshup secured $60 million in funding from Globespan Capital Partners and EvolutionX Debt Capital to enhance its AI-driven messaging platform and expand into high-growth regions like India and Latin America. The company aims to capitalise on the growing enterprise adoption of conversational AI for customer support and sales. Gupshup plans to improve efficiency and employee productivity through AI automation. Conversational messaging platform Gupshup has raised $60 million in a mix of equity and debt funding from venture capital firm Globespan Capital Partners and debt financing platform EvolutionX Debt Capital. The fresh capital will be used to expand Gupshup's AI-driven messaging platform and accelerate go-to-market execution across high-growth regions, including India, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. The funding comes as Gupshup sees growing enterprise adoption of conversational AI tools across customer support, sales, and commerce, amid a broader global push towards AI automation. "AI and large language models have taken off in a big way, and businesses are now trying to build AI agents. We are well positioned to enable that because our platform is built on top of messaging and agents engage users through these channels," Beerud Sheth, founder and CEO of Gupshup, told ET. "It's a natural upsell to everything we've been offering." Founded in 2004, Gupshup began as a messaging API and bot infrastructure provider, and has in recent years focused on AI-powered customer engagement solutions. It is backed by investors such as Tiger Global and Fidelity. The company helps businesses automate complex customer interactions while maintaining personalised, human-like conversations. It claims to process over 120 billion messages annually for more than 50,000 businesses across 130 countries. Gupshup also offers tools for marketing, sales, and customer support across platforms such as WhatsApp, voice, mobile apps, and websites. India remains Gupshup's largest market, contributing around 60% of its revenue, with the remaining 40% coming from other geographies. "Gupshup has turned the vision of conversational AI into an enterprise-scale reality. With deep AI expertise, robust infrastructure, and relentless execution, Gupshup is redefining how businesses engage customers", said Andy Goldfarb, cofounder and managing partner of Globespan Capital Partners. "From India to UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil, Gupshup's conversation cloud and AI agents are transforming customer and employee interactions." Currently, about 60% of Gupshup's customers are large enterprises, spanning the ecommerce, retail, payments, fintech, media, travel, automotive, and banking sectors. The rest are small and mid-sized businesses, according to Sheth. In April, Gupshup said it had laid off around 300 employees over the past two years as part of efforts to streamline operations and focus on profitable growth after a period of rapid expansion. The company's headcount had risen to about 1,500 employees by 2021, following a series of acquisitions and lateral hires. It currently employs around 1,000 people, according to Sheth. "Every business tries to support greater scale without increasing costs. If you can improve efficiency and increase revenue per employee, that's great. In this AI era, we can make all our employees more productive through automation and by leveraging AI," said Sheth. After its $100 million funding round from Tiger Global in 2022, Gupshup acquired startups in the conversational AI and customer engagement space, including AskSid, OneDirect, Knowlarity, Active.ai, and Dotgo. With the latest round, Gupshup has now raised a total of $200 million in primary capital and an additional $250 million via secondary transactions. Gupshup's competitors include companies such as Twilio, Yellow.ai, and Haptik.