\n<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 but is keeping its new valuation under wraps.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 the startup\u2019s first in roughly a decade \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The startup would not reveal the exact debt portion although its founder and CEO Beerud Seth told TechCrunch that the equity part is \u201ca little more than half.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2004, Gupshup \u2014 derived from Indian slang meaning \u201cconversations\u201d \u2014 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 \u2014 software that can perform specific tasks on behalf of users \u2014 have emerged everywhere, Gupshup has started enabling businesses to deploy agents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s 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\u2019s huge demand, and we need to support it,\u201d Seth said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Techcrunch event<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span> Gupshup does not view the rising competition as a threat. Seth pointed to the startup\u2019s substantial install base \u2014 which exceeds 50,000 customers across more than 100 countries \u2014 and its track record of product innovation, driven by years of experience in business messaging, strategic acquisitions, and internal R&D.<\/p>\n \u201cBusinesses 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\u2019s where Gupshup comes in. That\u2019s what we provide,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n Since its last round in July 2021, the startup \u201ctripled\u201d 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.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a founder, you focus on value, and the valuation will follow,\u201d Seth said when asked whether he still considers the startup a unicorn. \u201cWe operate ourselves like we are going to be a big company.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re talking to all our advisors, lawyers, bankers, accountants, and so on, to figure this out,\u201d Seth said.<\/p>\n The startup has no specific timeline for its public listing, although Seth told TechCrunch that it could happen in 18\u201324 months.<\/p>\n Gupshup is exploring whether it should list on Indian stock exchanges \u2014 a move that makes strategic sense, as the startup views India, where WhatsApp dominates, as a more favorable market. Among the reasons: it\u2019s easier to communicate its story to local retail investors, who are more familiar with WhatsApp and understand how Gupshup\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n The IPO \u201cis the one thing that we don\u2019t control entirely. The calendar depends as much on external factors as it does on the company,\u201d Seth said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 \u2014 but is keeping its new valuation under wraps. In 2021, Gupshup raised two funding rounds within four months, securing $340 million from prominent investors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[5042,1049,5337,5336,5340,2013,4804,5339,5338],"class_list":{"0":"post-11834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-60m","9":"tag-debt","10":"tag-equity","11":"tag-gupshup","12":"tag-hanging","13":"tag-leaves","14":"tag-raises","15":"tag-status","16":"tag-unicorn"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n