Gupshup, a business messaging startup that began its journey in India over two decades ago and became a unicorn four years ago, has raised a new over $60 million round — but is keeping its new valuation under wraps.
In 2021, Gupshup raised two funding rounds within four months, securing $340 million from prominent investors including Tiger Global, Fidelity Management, Think Investments, and Malabar Investments. These rounds — the startup’s first in roughly a decade — valued Gupshup at $1.4 billion. However, Fidelity, which led the round following its unicorn milestone, slashed its internal valuation of the startup at least three times between 2023 and 2024, bringing it down to as low as $486 million.
The new funding round, which combines equity and debt financing from Globespan Capital Partners and EvolutionX Debt Capital, aims to help the San Francisco-headquartered startup expand its presence across its high-growth markets, including India, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa.
The startup would not reveal the exact debt portion although its founder and CEO Beerud Seth told TechCrunch that the equity part is “a little more than half.”
In 2004, Gupshup — derived from Indian slang meaning “conversations” — started as a platform to help businesses connect with their customers through text messages. It gained popularity as text messages were not free at the time, and people were seeking ways to send messages to their friends and community groups. However, as communication shifted from short messaging service (SMS) to WhatsApp and Rich Communication Services (RCS), the startup moved to these avenues with its chatbot services. Now, as AI has become a catchall term, and AI agents — software that can perform specific tasks on behalf of users — have emerged everywhere, Gupshup has started enabling businesses to deploy agents.
“There’s a lot of demand coming from enterprises. Everybody needs to build these AI agents, which work through messaging like RCS and WhatsApp or through voice. So, building out these agents, there’s huge demand, and we need to support it,” Seth said.
Globally, AI agents are gaining traction, with startups building them drawing strong investor interest. Tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are also exploring how to bring more of these agents to users through their own platforms. The result: competition is heating up.
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Gupshup does not view the rising competition as a threat. Seth pointed to the startup’s substantial install base — which exceeds 50,000 customers across more than 100 countries — and its track record of product innovation, driven by years of experience in business messaging, strategic acquisitions, and internal R&D.
“Businesses cannot use simple foundation models off the shelf and just put them in front of customers. They need a lot of customization to be done, and that’s where Gupshup comes in. That’s what we provide,” he noted.
Since its last round in July 2021, the startup “tripled” its revenue and grew its profitability, Sheth said. However, it is unclear whether that resulted in an increased valuation, as, he said, this latest round was not priced.
“As a founder, you focus on value, and the valuation will follow,” Seth said when asked whether he still considers the startup a unicorn. “We operate ourselves like we are going to be a big company.”
Alongside expanding geographically, the startup aims to utilize its fresh funding to enhance its products, which are used in industries including automotive, banking, e-commerce, fintech, media, payments, retail, and travel. Its products also include click-to-chat ads, an AI campaign copilot, agent assist, and campaign manager.
Gupshup claims to power over 120 billion messages annually for thousands of enterprises. Looking ahead, the startup sees an IPO as its next major milestone.
“We’re talking to all our advisors, lawyers, bankers, accountants, and so on, to figure this out,” Seth said.
The startup has no specific timeline for its public listing, although Seth told TechCrunch that it could happen in 18–24 months.
Gupshup is exploring whether it should list on Indian stock exchanges — a move that makes strategic sense, as the startup views India, where WhatsApp dominates, as a more favorable market. Among the reasons: it’s easier to communicate its story to local retail investors, who are more familiar with WhatsApp and understand how Gupshup’s products, including its AI agents, operate within the platform. However, since Gupshup is domiciled in the U.S., a flip to India would trigger tax liabilities, which could require additional funding.
The IPO “is the one thing that we don’t control entirely. The calendar depends as much on external factors as it does on the company,” Seth said.
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#Gupshup #raises #60M #equity #debt #leaves #unicorn #status #hanging #TechCrunch
![Sam Altman’s project World looks to scale its human verification empire. First stop: Tinder. | TechCrunch
At a trendy venue near the San Francisco pier, Sam Altman’s verification project World celebrated its next evolution and rapid expansion of its ambitions. And it’s starting with Tinder.
Tools for Humanity (TFH), the company behind the World project, announced Friday plans to integrate its verification tech into dating apps, event and concert ticketing systems, business organizations, email, and other arenas of public life.
“The world is getting close to very powerful AI, and this is doing a lot of wonderful things,” said Altman, speaking before a packed crowd at The Midway. “We are also heading to a world now where there’s going to be more stuff generated by AI than by humans,” he added. “I’m sure many of you [have had moments] where you’re like, ‘Am I interacting with an AI or a person, or how much of each, and how do I know?”
World (formerly Worldcoin) distinguishes itself from many of its ID verification peers by offering the ability to verify that a real, living human is using a digital service while still protecting that person’s anonymity. There is some complex cryptographic alchemy behind this (something called “zero-knowledge proof-based authentication”). The upshot: The company is creating what it calls “proof of human” tools, which are mechanisms that can verify human activity in a world rife with AI agents and bots.
Its chief tool for verification is a spherical digital reader called the Orb that scans a user’s eyes, converting their iris into a unique and anonymous cryptographic identifier (known as a verified World ID). This can then be used to access World’s services, although users can also access World’s app without one.
Altman kept his remarks brief on Friday (TFH’s co-founder and CEO, Alex Blania, was absent due to a last-minute hand surgery, Altman said). He then turned much of the presentation over to World’s chief product officer, Tiago Sada, and his team.
Sada explained that World was launching the newest version of its app (the last version was launched at an event in December), along with a plethora of new integrations for its technology.
World has been preparing, for some time, to deploy a verification service for dating apps — most notably, Tinder. Last year, Tinder launched a World ID pilot program in Japan. That pilot was apparently a success because World announced that Tinder would be launching its verification integration in global markets —including the U.S. The program integrates a World ID emblem into the profiles of users who have gone through its verification processes, thus authenticating them as a real person.
Image Credits:World
World is also courting the entertainment industry by launching a new feature called Concert Kit, where musical artists can reserve a certain number of concert tickets for World ID-verified humans. This is designed to ensure that fans are safe from scalpers who often use automated ticket-buying bots to scarf up seats. Concert Kit is compatible with major ticketing systems, including Ticketmaster and Eventbrite, and the company is promoting it via partnerships with 30 Seconds to Mars and Bruno Mars — both of whom plan to use it for their upcoming tours.
The event was full of many other announcements, including some aimed at businesses. A Zoom/World ID verification integration seeks to battle a supposed deepfake threat to business calls, and a Docusign partnership is designed to ensure signatures come from authentic users.
The company is also working on a number of features in anticipation of the Wild West of the agentic web, including one called “agent delegation,” in which a person can delegate their World ID to an agent to carry out online activities on their behalf. A partnership with authentication firm Okta has also created a system (currently in beta) that verifies that an agent is acting on behalf of a human. The system is set up so that a World ID can be tied to a specific agent and then, when the agent goes out into the web to operate on that person’s behalf, websites will know a verified person is behind the behavior, said Okta’s chief product officer, Gareth Davies, at the event.
So far, it’s been difficult for World to scale, due largely to the verification process itself. For much of the company’s history, to get its gold standard, you had to travel to one of its offices and have your eyeballs scanned by an Orb — a fairly inconvenient (not to mention weird) experience.
Image Credits:World
However, World has continually made moves to increase the ease and incentive structure for verification. In the past, it offered its crypto asset, Worldcoin, to some members who signed up and has distributed its Orbs into big retail chains so that users can verify themselves while they’re out shopping or getting a coffee. Now the company is announcing that it is significantly expanding its Orb saturation in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The company also promoted a service where interested users could have World bring an Orb to their location for remote verification.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Sada also shared that World has attempted to solve the scaling problem by creating different tiers of verification. The highest tier is Orb verification, but below that, World has previously offered a mid-level tier, which uses an anonymized scan of an official government ID via the card’s NFC chip.
The company also introduced a low-level tier, or what Sada called “low friction”— meaning low effort, I guess, but also “low security” — which involves merely taking a selfie.
Selfie Check, which Sada’s team presented during the event, is designed to maintain user privacy.
“Selfie is private by design,” said Daniel Shorr, one of TFH’s executives, during the presentation. “That means that we maximize the local processing that’s happening on your device, on your phone, which means that your images are yours.”
Selfie verification obviously isn’t new, and fraudsters have long managed to spoof it. “Obviously, we do our best, and it’s like one of the best systems that you’ll see for this. But it has limits,” Sada told TechCrunch. Developers looking to integrate World’s services can choose from the three different verification tiers depending on the level of security that’s important to them, he noted.
#Sam #Altmans #project #World #scale #human #verification #empire #stop #Tinder #TechCrunchDocuSign,sam altman,Tinder,World,Worldcoin,zoom](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-17-at-1.55.00-PM.png?w=680 "Sam Altman’s project World looks to scale its human verification empire. First stop: Tinder. | TechCrunch
At a trendy venue near the San Francisco pier, Sam Altman’s verification project World celebrated its next evolution and rapid expansion of its ambitions. And it’s starting with Tinder.
Tools for Humanity (TFH), the company behind the World project, announced Friday plans to integrate its verification tech into dating apps, event and concert ticketing systems, business organizations, email, and other arenas of public life.
“The world is getting close to very powerful AI, and this is doing a lot of wonderful things,” said Altman, speaking before a packed crowd at The Midway. “We are also heading to a world now where there’s going to be more stuff generated by AI than by humans,” he added. “I’m sure many of you [have had moments] where you’re like, ‘Am I interacting with an AI or a person, or how much of each, and how do I know?”
World (formerly Worldcoin) distinguishes itself from many of its ID verification peers by offering the ability to verify that a real, living human is using a digital service while still protecting that person’s anonymity. There is some complex cryptographic alchemy behind this (something called “zero-knowledge proof-based authentication”). The upshot: The company is creating what it calls “proof of human” tools, which are mechanisms that can verify human activity in a world rife with AI agents and bots.
Its chief tool for verification is a spherical digital reader called the Orb that scans a user’s eyes, converting their iris into a unique and anonymous cryptographic identifier (known as a verified World ID). This can then be used to access World’s services, although users can also access World’s app without one.
Altman kept his remarks brief on Friday (TFH’s co-founder and CEO, Alex Blania, was absent due to a last-minute hand surgery, Altman said). He then turned much of the presentation over to World’s chief product officer, Tiago Sada, and his team.
Sada explained that World was launching the newest version of its app (the last version was launched at an event in December), along with a plethora of new integrations for its technology.
World has been preparing, for some time, to deploy a verification service for dating apps — most notably, Tinder. Last year, Tinder launched a World ID pilot program in Japan. That pilot was apparently a success because World announced that Tinder would be launching its verification integration in global markets —including the U.S. The program integrates a World ID emblem into the profiles of users who have gone through its verification processes, thus authenticating them as a real person.
Image Credits:World
World is also courting the entertainment industry by launching a new feature called Concert Kit, where musical artists can reserve a certain number of concert tickets for World ID-verified humans. This is designed to ensure that fans are safe from scalpers who often use automated ticket-buying bots to scarf up seats. Concert Kit is compatible with major ticketing systems, including Ticketmaster and Eventbrite, and the company is promoting it via partnerships with 30 Seconds to Mars and Bruno Mars — both of whom plan to use it for their upcoming tours.
The event was full of many other announcements, including some aimed at businesses. A Zoom/World ID verification integration seeks to battle a supposed deepfake threat to business calls, and a Docusign partnership is designed to ensure signatures come from authentic users.
The company is also working on a number of features in anticipation of the Wild West of the agentic web, including one called “agent delegation,” in which a person can delegate their World ID to an agent to carry out online activities on their behalf. A partnership with authentication firm Okta has also created a system (currently in beta) that verifies that an agent is acting on behalf of a human. The system is set up so that a World ID can be tied to a specific agent and then, when the agent goes out into the web to operate on that person’s behalf, websites will know a verified person is behind the behavior, said Okta’s chief product officer, Gareth Davies, at the event.
So far, it’s been difficult for World to scale, due largely to the verification process itself. For much of the company’s history, to get its gold standard, you had to travel to one of its offices and have your eyeballs scanned by an Orb — a fairly inconvenient (not to mention weird) experience.
Image Credits:World
However, World has continually made moves to increase the ease and incentive structure for verification. In the past, it offered its crypto asset, Worldcoin, to some members who signed up and has distributed its Orbs into big retail chains so that users can verify themselves while they’re out shopping or getting a coffee. Now the company is announcing that it is significantly expanding its Orb saturation in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The company also promoted a service where interested users could have World bring an Orb to their location for remote verification.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Sada also shared that World has attempted to solve the scaling problem by creating different tiers of verification. The highest tier is Orb verification, but below that, World has previously offered a mid-level tier, which uses an anonymized scan of an official government ID via the card’s NFC chip.
The company also introduced a low-level tier, or what Sada called “low friction”— meaning low effort, I guess, but also “low security” — which involves merely taking a selfie.
Selfie Check, which Sada’s team presented during the event, is designed to maintain user privacy.
“Selfie is private by design,” said Daniel Shorr, one of TFH’s executives, during the presentation. “That means that we maximize the local processing that’s happening on your device, on your phone, which means that your images are yours.”
Selfie verification obviously isn’t new, and fraudsters have long managed to spoof it. “Obviously, we do our best, and it’s like one of the best systems that you’ll see for this. But it has limits,” Sada told TechCrunch. Developers looking to integrate World’s services can choose from the three different verification tiers depending on the level of security that’s important to them, he noted.
#Sam #Altmans #project #World #scale #human #verification #empire #stop #Tinder #TechCrunchDocuSign,sam altman,Tinder,World,Worldcoin,zoom")
![Sam Altman’s project World looks to scale its human verification empire. First stop: Tinder. | TechCrunch
At a trendy venue near the San Francisco pier, Sam Altman’s verification project World celebrated its next evolution and rapid expansion of its ambitions. And it’s starting with Tinder.
Tools for Humanity (TFH), the company behind the World project, announced Friday plans to integrate its verification tech into dating apps, event and concert ticketing systems, business organizations, email, and other arenas of public life.
“The world is getting close to very powerful AI, and this is doing a lot of wonderful things,” said Altman, speaking before a packed crowd at The Midway. “We are also heading to a world now where there’s going to be more stuff generated by AI than by humans,” he added. “I’m sure many of you [have had moments] where you’re like, ‘Am I interacting with an AI or a person, or how much of each, and how do I know?”
World (formerly Worldcoin) distinguishes itself from many of its ID verification peers by offering the ability to verify that a real, living human is using a digital service while still protecting that person’s anonymity. There is some complex cryptographic alchemy behind this (something called “zero-knowledge proof-based authentication”). The upshot: The company is creating what it calls “proof of human” tools, which are mechanisms that can verify human activity in a world rife with AI agents and bots.
Its chief tool for verification is a spherical digital reader called the Orb that scans a user’s eyes, converting their iris into a unique and anonymous cryptographic identifier (known as a verified World ID). This can then be used to access World’s services, although users can also access World’s app without one.
Altman kept his remarks brief on Friday (TFH’s co-founder and CEO, Alex Blania, was absent due to a last-minute hand surgery, Altman said). He then turned much of the presentation over to World’s chief product officer, Tiago Sada, and his team.
Sada explained that World was launching the newest version of its app (the last version was launched at an event in December), along with a plethora of new integrations for its technology.
World has been preparing, for some time, to deploy a verification service for dating apps — most notably, Tinder. Last year, Tinder launched a World ID pilot program in Japan. That pilot was apparently a success because World announced that Tinder would be launching its verification integration in global markets —including the U.S. The program integrates a World ID emblem into the profiles of users who have gone through its verification processes, thus authenticating them as a real person.
Image Credits:World
World is also courting the entertainment industry by launching a new feature called Concert Kit, where musical artists can reserve a certain number of concert tickets for World ID-verified humans. This is designed to ensure that fans are safe from scalpers who often use automated ticket-buying bots to scarf up seats. Concert Kit is compatible with major ticketing systems, including Ticketmaster and Eventbrite, and the company is promoting it via partnerships with 30 Seconds to Mars and Bruno Mars — both of whom plan to use it for their upcoming tours.
The event was full of many other announcements, including some aimed at businesses. A Zoom/World ID verification integration seeks to battle a supposed deepfake threat to business calls, and a Docusign partnership is designed to ensure signatures come from authentic users.
The company is also working on a number of features in anticipation of the Wild West of the agentic web, including one called “agent delegation,” in which a person can delegate their World ID to an agent to carry out online activities on their behalf. A partnership with authentication firm Okta has also created a system (currently in beta) that verifies that an agent is acting on behalf of a human. The system is set up so that a World ID can be tied to a specific agent and then, when the agent goes out into the web to operate on that person’s behalf, websites will know a verified person is behind the behavior, said Okta’s chief product officer, Gareth Davies, at the event.
So far, it’s been difficult for World to scale, due largely to the verification process itself. For much of the company’s history, to get its gold standard, you had to travel to one of its offices and have your eyeballs scanned by an Orb — a fairly inconvenient (not to mention weird) experience.
Image Credits:World
However, World has continually made moves to increase the ease and incentive structure for verification. In the past, it offered its crypto asset, Worldcoin, to some members who signed up and has distributed its Orbs into big retail chains so that users can verify themselves while they’re out shopping or getting a coffee. Now the company is announcing that it is significantly expanding its Orb saturation in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The company also promoted a service where interested users could have World bring an Orb to their location for remote verification.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Sada also shared that World has attempted to solve the scaling problem by creating different tiers of verification. The highest tier is Orb verification, but below that, World has previously offered a mid-level tier, which uses an anonymized scan of an official government ID via the card’s NFC chip.
The company also introduced a low-level tier, or what Sada called “low friction”— meaning low effort, I guess, but also “low security” — which involves merely taking a selfie.
Selfie Check, which Sada’s team presented during the event, is designed to maintain user privacy.
“Selfie is private by design,” said Daniel Shorr, one of TFH’s executives, during the presentation. “That means that we maximize the local processing that’s happening on your device, on your phone, which means that your images are yours.”
Selfie verification obviously isn’t new, and fraudsters have long managed to spoof it. “Obviously, we do our best, and it’s like one of the best systems that you’ll see for this. But it has limits,” Sada told TechCrunch. Developers looking to integrate World’s services can choose from the three different verification tiers depending on the level of security that’s important to them, he noted.
#Sam #Altmans #project #World #scale #human #verification #empire #stop #Tinder #TechCrunchDocuSign,sam altman,Tinder,World,Worldcoin,zoom](https://i2.wp.com/techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-17-at-1.55.00-PM.png?w=680&ssl=1 "Sam Altman’s project World looks to scale its human verification empire. First stop: Tinder. | TechCrunch
At a trendy venue near the San Francisco pier, Sam Altman’s verification project World celebrated its next evolution and rapid expansion of its ambitions. And it’s starting with Tinder.
Tools for Humanity (TFH), the company behind the World project, announced Friday plans to integrate its verification tech into dating apps, event and concert ticketing systems, business organizations, email, and other arenas of public life.
“The world is getting close to very powerful AI, and this is doing a lot of wonderful things,” said Altman, speaking before a packed crowd at The Midway. “We are also heading to a world now where there’s going to be more stuff generated by AI than by humans,” he added. “I’m sure many of you [have had moments] where you’re like, ‘Am I interacting with an AI or a person, or how much of each, and how do I know?”
World (formerly Worldcoin) distinguishes itself from many of its ID verification peers by offering the ability to verify that a real, living human is using a digital service while still protecting that person’s anonymity. There is some complex cryptographic alchemy behind this (something called “zero-knowledge proof-based authentication”). The upshot: The company is creating what it calls “proof of human” tools, which are mechanisms that can verify human activity in a world rife with AI agents and bots.
Its chief tool for verification is a spherical digital reader called the Orb that scans a user’s eyes, converting their iris into a unique and anonymous cryptographic identifier (known as a verified World ID). This can then be used to access World’s services, although users can also access World’s app without one.
Altman kept his remarks brief on Friday (TFH’s co-founder and CEO, Alex Blania, was absent due to a last-minute hand surgery, Altman said). He then turned much of the presentation over to World’s chief product officer, Tiago Sada, and his team.
Sada explained that World was launching the newest version of its app (the last version was launched at an event in December), along with a plethora of new integrations for its technology.
World has been preparing, for some time, to deploy a verification service for dating apps — most notably, Tinder. Last year, Tinder launched a World ID pilot program in Japan. That pilot was apparently a success because World announced that Tinder would be launching its verification integration in global markets —including the U.S. The program integrates a World ID emblem into the profiles of users who have gone through its verification processes, thus authenticating them as a real person.
Image Credits:World
World is also courting the entertainment industry by launching a new feature called Concert Kit, where musical artists can reserve a certain number of concert tickets for World ID-verified humans. This is designed to ensure that fans are safe from scalpers who often use automated ticket-buying bots to scarf up seats. Concert Kit is compatible with major ticketing systems, including Ticketmaster and Eventbrite, and the company is promoting it via partnerships with 30 Seconds to Mars and Bruno Mars — both of whom plan to use it for their upcoming tours.
The event was full of many other announcements, including some aimed at businesses. A Zoom/World ID verification integration seeks to battle a supposed deepfake threat to business calls, and a Docusign partnership is designed to ensure signatures come from authentic users.
The company is also working on a number of features in anticipation of the Wild West of the agentic web, including one called “agent delegation,” in which a person can delegate their World ID to an agent to carry out online activities on their behalf. A partnership with authentication firm Okta has also created a system (currently in beta) that verifies that an agent is acting on behalf of a human. The system is set up so that a World ID can be tied to a specific agent and then, when the agent goes out into the web to operate on that person’s behalf, websites will know a verified person is behind the behavior, said Okta’s chief product officer, Gareth Davies, at the event.
So far, it’s been difficult for World to scale, due largely to the verification process itself. For much of the company’s history, to get its gold standard, you had to travel to one of its offices and have your eyeballs scanned by an Orb — a fairly inconvenient (not to mention weird) experience.
Image Credits:World
However, World has continually made moves to increase the ease and incentive structure for verification. In the past, it offered its crypto asset, Worldcoin, to some members who signed up and has distributed its Orbs into big retail chains so that users can verify themselves while they’re out shopping or getting a coffee. Now the company is announcing that it is significantly expanding its Orb saturation in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The company also promoted a service where interested users could have World bring an Orb to their location for remote verification.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Sada also shared that World has attempted to solve the scaling problem by creating different tiers of verification. The highest tier is Orb verification, but below that, World has previously offered a mid-level tier, which uses an anonymized scan of an official government ID via the card’s NFC chip.
The company also introduced a low-level tier, or what Sada called “low friction”— meaning low effort, I guess, but also “low security” — which involves merely taking a selfie.
Selfie Check, which Sada’s team presented during the event, is designed to maintain user privacy.
“Selfie is private by design,” said Daniel Shorr, one of TFH’s executives, during the presentation. “That means that we maximize the local processing that’s happening on your device, on your phone, which means that your images are yours.”
Selfie verification obviously isn’t new, and fraudsters have long managed to spoof it. “Obviously, we do our best, and it’s like one of the best systems that you’ll see for this. But it has limits,” Sada told TechCrunch. Developers looking to integrate World’s services can choose from the three different verification tiers depending on the level of security that’s important to them, he noted.
#Sam #Altmans #project #World #scale #human #verification #empire #stop #Tinder #TechCrunchDocuSign,sam altman,Tinder,World,Worldcoin,zoom")
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