Gupshup Hones Conversational Messaging Capabilities With $240M Raise

Gupshup, a conversational messaging company, secured $240 million in a round led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from Fidelity Management, Think Investments, Malabar Investments, Harbor Spring Capital, and others.

About: With conversational messaging solutions like Gupshup, businesses like Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) and Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) communicate and engage customers, real-time.

The company’s API, bot platform and building tools, scripting engines, AI and more enables developers to seamlessly build messaging and conversational experiences.

In essence, Gupshup transforms boring messages e-commerce or delivery companies may send into rich, interactive visuals.

What Happened: To foster the growth of new tools, infrastructure and services, as well as expand to new geographies, Gupshup raised $240 million, bringing the company’s valuation to $1.64 billion.

In a statement to Benzinga, Beerud Sheth, co-founder and CEO at Gupshup, said: “This funding round was driven by strong investor interest in Gupshup given the overall growth in the conversational messaging space and the innovation-led market-leadership position Gupshup has established.”

Why It Matters: The development comes amid growing demand from businesses looking to transform traditionally boring e-commerce and delivery messages, for instance, with rich, interactive visuals.

“Some of the funds from the funding round will be used for a share buyback from employees and prior investors that supported the company for nearly 15 years,” Sheth added. “The rest will be used for rapid investment in product development and go-to-market activities along with potential M&A. For M&A opportunities, we will explore companies that have unique talent, can fill product gaps in the Gupshup portfolio, or enable us to expand into adjacent spaces.”