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 $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 Sheth 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.
