Gupshup raises $60 million from Globespan, EvolutionX; explores domicile shift for India IPO

Conversational messaging platform Gupshup has raised $60 million, with the majority in the form of equity funding from venture capital firm Globespan Capital Partners, and the remainder as debt from 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 San Francisco-headquartered company is also exploring a shift in domicile to India ahead of a potential public listing in the country, likely within the next 12 to 24 months.

“Any company like ours, that has been around for a long time, has scale, and is profitable, is a good candidate to go out there and get listed. We’re talking to advisors and exploring things (to shift domicile and list),” Beerud Sheth, founder and CEO of Gupshup, told ET.

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,” said Sheth. “It’s a natural upsell to everything we’ve been offering.”

The company has not disclosed the post-money valuation for its latest funding round. However, in 2023, Fidelity Investments marked down the valuation of its investment in Gupshup by 37.4% to $876.4 million.

Founded in 2004, Gupshup began as a messaging application programming interface (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.

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