Business communication platform Gupshup raises $240 million, to buyback ESOPs

• Tiger Global, Think Investments and Malabar Investments participated in the round.
• The company will be exploring mergers and acquisitions to expand its business.
• A part of the funding will also be used to buyback shares from the company's employees.

Messaging platform Gupshup, which became a unicorn earlier in April 2021, has raised an additional funding of $240 million in a follow-on funding round.

Several marquee investors like Fidelity Management and Research Company LLC, Tiger Global, Think Investments, Malabar Investments, Harbor Spring Capital participated in the round, along with certain accounts managed by Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers LLC, White Oak, and others.

A unicorn is a startup valued at or more than $1 billion.

The 17-year-old company will use this funding to invest in its product and also enable buyback shares from existing and former employees. The company will also be providing partial exits to few of its initial investors.

Gupshup is also exploring merger and acquisition (M&A) opportunities to expand its business, it announced in the press release.

“We have followed Gupshup’s progress for a long while and believe that they are the most evolved customer communications platform In India and increasingly in other emerging markets, with a leadership position in the most attractive and fastest growing sub-segments of the market,” said Sumeet Nagar, managing director of Malabar Investments.

Gupshup was founded by Beerud Sheth in 2004. It is a conversational messaging platform that enables businesses to manage internal communications. The company provides a platform for developers to build bots for SMS, Twitter, Slack, WeChat, Teamchat and others.

The company’s clientele is spread across banking, ecommerce, hospitality, consumer goods and other industries. A few big names in its client list are Zomato, Flipkart, HDFC Bank, and others.

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