Business to business conversational messaging platform Gupshup has raised an additional $240 million in follow-on funding from an industry-leading group of investors including Fidelity Management, Tiger Global, Think Investments, Malabar Investments and others.
This funding round follows the $100 million raise from Tiger Global in April, at a $1.4 billion valuation. While the company’s current valuation couldn’t be ascertained, it is likely to be valued at around or close to $2 billion.
Gupshup will use this investment to buy secondary shares from current and former employees as well as prior investors, said the company in a press release. Gupshup is also exploring M&A opportunities to expand its business opportunities.
“We are transforming digital commerce around the world with conversational messaging. We look forward to partnering with our new investors given their incredible track record of backing category-creating companies. We are also gratified by the opportunity to provide partial liquidity and great returns to early investors and employees that put their faith in Gupshup,” said Beerud Sheth, co-founder and CEO of Gupshup.
The 15-year-old company offers an API that businesses can use to enable messaging services to engage with their customers on platforms like WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, and Slack among others.
Gupshup claims that its API enables over 100,000 developers and businesses to build messaging and conversational experiences delivering over 6 billion messages per month over 30 messaging channels.
Besides India, Gupshup has a presence in Latin America, South East Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa and the United States. It’s also looking to expand geographically with the fresh proceeds.
Backed by the likes of Helion Venture Partners and Tenaya Capital, Gupshup has raised $390 million to date. in 2021. The company also said that it ended 2020 with an annual revenue run rate of $150 million.
Global companies such as Zendesk, Twilio, Yalochat and Nexmo are the alternatives and direct competitors of Gupshup.
Microsoft and Google in the long haul as this space looks very complimentary for them. According to experts, they may prefer to buy messaging platforms instead of building one.
