In June 2021, the fund had acquired 709,497 preference shares of the company for $16.2 million. The updated share value suggests a $876.4 million valuation for Gupshup.
Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund’s stake in the San Francisco, California-headquartered but homegrown startup was valued at nearly $11.09 million as of April 30, 2023, compared with about $10.16 million on May 31, 2023.
BlackRock owns less than 1% in Think and Learn Pvt Ltd, the parent of Byju’s.
Other late-stage startups that have had their valuations revised by institutional investors in recent months include edtech major Byju’s, social commerce platform Meesho, fintech firm Pine Labs, online pharmacy PharmEasy, mobility company Ola, and food delivery company Swiggy.
Online publication TechCrunch was the first to report about Gupshup’s markdown by Fidelity on Friday evening. The Beerud Shah-founded firm supports 100,000 businesses with its WhatsApp integration software for customer care chat requirements.
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Shah had told ET in an interview in June that about 70% of Gupshup’s revenue comes from India. The company has acquired five firms since 2021 – AskSid, Active.Ai, OneDirect, Knowlarity and Dotgo.“The acquisitions helped fill out certain gaps in the product portfolio. The net result of that was we have the most advanced product portfolio now,” Shah told ET. Gupshup had an annual revenue run rate of about $150 million as of 2020.
In July 2021, the conversational messaging startup had raised an additional $240 million in follow-on funding from investors, including Fidelity Management and Research Company, Tiger Global, Think Investments, Malabar Investments and Harbor Spring Capital. The funding round followed the $100 million raise from Tiger Global in April, at a $1.4 billion valuation.
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