Messaging services platform Gupshup raises $100 million from Tiger Global; becomes 6th Unicorn this week

“The growth in business use of messaging and conversational experiences, transforming virtually every customer touchpoint, is an exciting secular trend,” said John Curtius, Partner at Tiger Global Management.

Gupshup, which was once known as SMS Gupshup, has been leveraging the power of the business messaging space in India for a long time. Gupshup says its technology is specially designed to optimise mobile-first economies like India and other emerging markets with similar dynamics.

Today several brands like Reliance Jio, Paytm, Zomato, Flipkart, Myntra, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra use Gupshup API for customer engagement across multiple channels, especially SMS.

The ubiquity of smartphones and the dominance of messaging apps is forcing businesses to go where the consumers are, in their favourite messaging apps. The team says that over the last few years, business messaging has become more conversational as SMS messages include hyperlinks and new messaging channels emerge.

“Customers expect to converse with businesses the way they do with friends. They expect the conversation to be simple, easy, quick, contextual, and personalized,” explained Beerud Sheth, Gupshup Co-founder and CEO.

“Gupshup’s mission is to build the tools that help businesses better engage with customers through mobile messaging and conversational experiences,” he added.

Gupshup’s last funding round was in 2011 and the company claims to have exited 2020 with an annual revenue run rate of approximately 150 million dollars.

According to the team, this new funding will be followed by a second close with additional funds from more investors. That announcement will be made at a later date, though there is no clarity on the timeline as of now.