Fidelity marked its stake down repeatedly, implying a valuation around $300M — roughly 80% below its 2021 unicorn peak
The rise & fall
5 moments · 2004–2025
The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2004
🌱
2004
Founded in the SMS era
Beerud Sheth's messaging platform starts long before WhatsApp bots — and pivots into APIs that let businesses text their customers.
Wikipedia
2021
📈
2021
The peak: $1.4B in the conversational-AI boom$1.4B
Fidelity and Tiger Global back the chatbot-and-messaging API platform; a funding-fueled acquisition spree follows.
TechCrunch
2023–25
2023–25
The write-downs come in stages
In public filings Fidelity marks its stake down again and again — implying ~$957M, then ~$486M, then roughly $300M, an ~80% markdown from peak.
Business Standard
2023
💔
2023
Marked out of the club
No press release, just paperwork: a Fidelity filing implies the valuation has slipped below $1B.
Inc42
2023–25
💬
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2023–25
Employee reviews from the markdown years described a long squeeze: the acquisition spree giving way to downsizing, layoff rounds recurring so regularly that staff spoke of them as routine, and raises and bonuses thinning while stock grants sat illiquid, waiting on an IPO that kept receding.
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
Gupshup is a conversational-messaging platform that helps businesses reach customers over SMS, WhatsApp and other channels via APIs and chatbots. It hit a $1.4B valuation in 2021 when Fidelity and Tiger Global backed the conversational-AI boom; as growth-stage valuations corrected, Fidelity wrote its stake down repeatedly in public filings — to an implied ~$957M, then ~$486M, then roughly $300M, an ~80% markdown from peak.
Source: TechCrunch / Business Standard / Inc42 (conversational-messaging/business-API SaaS company; valued at $1.4B when Fidelity and Tiger Global invested in 2021; Fidelity marked its stake down in stages — implying ~$957M, then ~$486M, then ~$300M — stripping unicorn status)
